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THE  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION 
OF  OUR  TIMES 


BY 

ROBERT  F.  FOERSTER,  Ph.D. 

PROFESSOR  OF  ECONOMICS 
PRINCETON  UNIVERSITY 


CAMBRIDGE 

HARVARD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
LONDON:  HUMPHREY  MILFORD 
Oxford  University  Press 
1924 


COPYRIGHT,  1919 
HARVARD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 


Second  printing 


PRINTED  AT  THE  HARVARD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
CAMBRIDGE,  MASS.,  U.S.A. 


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PREFACE 


A world  engrossed  as  never  before  with  defining  the  rights  and 
obligations  of  nationalities  and  with  mitigating  the  causes  of 
national  and  international  discord  cannot  afford  to  ignore  the  fer- 
tile field  for  study  presented  by  the  great  migrations  of  our  day. 
Among  these  the  Italian  easily  ranks  first  in  importance,  and  it  is 
typical  in  many  respects  of  the  rest.  The  problems  it  exhibits  are 
fundamental,  and  they  stand  forth  in  such  sharpness  of  relief  and 
such  largeness  of  dimension  that  there  can  be  no  mistaking  their 
nature. 

One’s  interest,  however,  easily  goes  further.  So  embracing  has 
been  this  emigration  that  a chronicle  of  its  development  must 
constitute  an  indispensable  chapter  in  the  history  of  the  Italian 
people,  whose  gifts  to  civilization  and  whose  qualities  in  human 
intercourse  have  attached  them  to  men  everywhere.  So  mem- 
orable likewise  have  been  the  contributions  of  the  emigrants  in  a 
number  of  lands  that  chapters  setting  forth  their  fortunes  there 
must  always  hold  a place  in  the  histories  of  the  several  countries 
themselves.  Inevitably  such  chapters  must  lack  a certain  dra- 
matic element  possible  to  narrative  or  political  or  biographical 
writing.  For  emigration  is  first  of  all,  and  chiefly,  a scattering.  The 
steerage  of  the  Atlantic  vessel  has  farmers  without  lands,  builders 
without  bricks,  doctors  without  patients,  and  the  marks  that  dis- 
tinguish the  dramatis  personae  at  every  step  have  to  be  obliterated 
in  order  that  the  collective  experience  may  be  understood.  On 
the  other  hand,  just  the  fact  that  a myriad  of  wills  are  in  question, 
and  the  homely  types  among  men  — the  diggers  and  hewers,  at 
the  best  the  artisans  — brings  us  nearer  to  certain  great  human 
experiences,  to  the  “still,  sad  music  of  humanity,”  than  a study  of 
protagonists  could  do. 

Of  an  immigration  problem  we  in  the  United  States  hear  much, 
and  now  and  then  we  are  warned  that  in  other  quarters  a problem 


2 8 6238 


VI 


PREFACE 


of  emigration  exists.  We  have  yet  to  learn  that,  strictly  speaking, 
there  is  only  a migration  problem.  Though  no  one  would  pretend 
that  Napoleon  can  be  justly  studied  as  emperor  alone  or  a flower 
as  it  blooms  in  August,  it  is  assumed  in  most  of  our  writings  upon 
immigration  that  the  causes  of  emigration  may  be  glossed  over, 
the  situation  of  emigrants  in  other  lands  ignored,  the  policy  of  the 
country  of  emigration  passed  by,  and  so  forth.  Often,  even,  it  is 
deemed  quite  sufficient  to  point  out,  picturesquely,  how  Antonio, 
earning  thirty  cents  at  home,  dreamed  of  Eldorado  and  freedom, 
found  both,  and  returned  to  his  native  hills  to  rouse  his  people  to 
higher  ways  of  living. 

But  anecdote  and  incident  can  never  be  made  sufficiently  illus- 
trative to  do  justice  to  so  large  a theme.  In  no  one  place  and  at 
no  one  moment  of  time  is  its  rationale  completely  unfolded.  From 
day  to  day  and  land  to  land  the  scene  changes.  The  broadest 
glance  of  any  one  man  is  insufficient.  We  are  like  the  astronomer 
who  must  supplement  what  he  sees  through  his  telescope  with 
what  other  men  have  recorded  and  with  what  the  steadier  gaze  of 
the  camera  reveals.  And  just  because  no  personal  record  can  ever 
suffice  for  such  a history,  the  historian  must  the  more  willingly  be 
guided  by  multifarious  evidence. 

The  bane  of  social  studies  has  ever  been  their  specious  simplifi- 
cation of  what  is  inevitably  complex,  even  their  entire  contented- 
ness with  stating  inferences  while  burking  premises.  Hence 
incessant  and  futile  debate,  pointless  conclusions,  inapplicable 
remedies.  For  this  situation  readers  themselves  are  partly  to 
blame.  A busy  world  too  easily  adopts  the  fashion  of  approving 
interpretation  while  caring  naught  for  the  ordering  of  fact,  and  is 
not  even  disturbed  when  the  language  of  the  ideal  is  employed  in 
the  description  of  the  actual.  It  is  only  when  they  are  put  to  a 
false  use  that  facts  are  inert  or  that  they  mislead  or  confuse. 
Rightly  placed,  they  alone  can  give  reality  to  argument.  Birds 
in  migration  fly  high  in  order  to  fly  far ; their  view  is  of  large  out- 
lines, assuring  them  of  direction,  yet  they  must  be  able  to  alight 
on  a branch. 

I have  dealt  more  fully  with  the  causes  of  emigration  than 
have  most  students  because  from  the  first  it  seemed  reasonable  to 


PREFACE 


Vll 


suppose  that  unwholesome  forces  might  be  at  work,  which  no  world 
economy  could  afford  to  ignore.  At  unusual  length,  again,  I have 
followed  the  Italians  into  the  countries  of  their  settlement,  both 
to  discover  the  character  of  their  economic  and  cultural  contribu- 
tions and  to  learn  the  nature  of  their  fortunes.  Too  broad  to  be 
taken  in  at  a glance,  the  picture  in  so  far  might  be  called  pano- 
ramic, did  it  not  lack  the  continuity  which  panoramic  views  sup- 
pose; it  is  more  like  a succession  of  frescoes,  each  panel  complete 
and  marked  off  from  the  next,  yet  each  illustrating  a single  theme 
in  different  coloring  and  circumstance.  But  there  the  analogy 
ends,  for  another  principle  is  at  work.  No  one  would  pretend  that 
the  comparative  method  of  inquiry  can  accomplish  for  social  prob- 
lems what  it  has  done  for  the  natural  sciences,  even  for  anthropol- 
ogy and  religions.  Yet  uniformities,  repetitions,  some  counter- 
part of  the  “ habits  ” of  natural  history,  exist,  and  though  greatly 
variable  in  their  degree  of  fixity,  have  undeniable  significance.  In 
regard  to  Italian  emigration,  a rare  opportunity  for  comparative 
study  is  at  hand,  hitherto  all  but  neglected;  but  the  available 
materials,  however  tempting,  must  not  be  forced,  and  I have  put 
into  Book  IV  about  as  much  as  they  have  seemed  to  me  to  allow. 

The  historian  of  an  emigration,  I suspect,  finds  more  chaff  in 
his  wheat  than  the  historian  of  a great  people;  at  least,  he  cannot 
and  often  dare  not  winnow  it  so  far.  My  own  visits  to  Italy  and 
my  observation  of  Italians  in  some  other  countries  have  been 
helpful  more  in  providing  points  of  view  and  standards  of  criticism 
than  in  supplying  materials.  While  a wealth  of  information  is  to 
be  had  upon  many  matters,  it  is  frequently  necessary  to  depend 
on  the  evidence  of  consuls  and  their  sort,  which  is  often  self- 
contradictory, often  palpably  exaggerated,  often  stupidly  cribbed 
from  what  their  predecessors  in  office  have  written,  and  often 
filled  with  patriotic  boastfulness  or  vigilant  faultfinding.  Even 
when  the  attempt  has  been  made  to  exclude  or  label  such  doubtful 
material,  or  to  interpret  it  in  the  light  of  local  report  and  the 
observation  of  travelers,  errors  have  undoubtedly  crept  into 
the  narrative.  But  these,  I hope,  have  been  compensating, 
and  in  any  case  they  would  scarcely  invalidate  the  drift  of  the 
argument. 


268238 


Vlll 


PREFACE 


A book,  Walt  Whitman  has  said,  should  “go  as  lightly  as  the 
bird  flies  in  the  air  or  a fish  swims  in  the  sea.”  I have  made  mine 
carry  much  luggage:  footnotes  apologetic  or  bibliographical. 
For  readers  are  like  countries:  some  like  a sort  of  free  trade,  while 
others  care  more  about  examining  chattels  and  credentials  than 
welcoming  the  visitor.  And  since  the  literature  of  this  book  is 
mainly  unfamiliar  to  English  readers,  I have  somewhat  freely 
indicated  the  pertinent  references  as  I have  gone  along.  These  in 
general  are  my  bibliography,  more  usefully  presented  so,  I believe, 
than  they  would  be  if  detached  and  detailed  at  the  end. 

The  book  is  almost  wholly  new.  Only  that  part  of  Book  I 
which  attempts  to  balance  the  outgoing  and  returning  Italians 
has  hitherto  been  published  (in  Volume  XXIII  of  the  Quarterly 
Journal  of  Economics ).  Among  a great  many  persons  whom  I 
have  to  thank  for  help  at  one  point  or  another,  I will  here  name 
only  two:  Professor  Taussig,  who  first,  years  ago,  suggested  to 
me  the  riches  of  my  subject  and  who  has  since  been  unstinting  in 
friendly  counsel,  and  my  wife,  whose  wise  and  essential  criticism 
has  seen  the  task  through. 


Harvard  University 
September,  1919 


CONTENTS 


BOOK  I.  — MAIN  CURRENTS 

CHAPTER  I 


Departure 3-22 

Introductory,  3.  Emigration  before  1876,  4.  Emigration  since  1876, 
especially  that  to  the  countries  of  Europe  and  the  Mediterranean  basin, 

7.  A criticism:  more  have  emigrated  than  the  statistics  show,  10. 
Emigration  overseas.  The  American  statistics,  15.  The  American  and 
Italian  statistics  compared,  17.  A summary,  21.  Migration  from  one 
foreign  country  to  another,  21. 

CHAPTER  II 

Return.  Circumstances  of  Emigration  23-43 

Permanent  and  temporary  emigrants,  23.  The  backflow  from  European 
countries,  27.  The  backflow  from  the  Americas,  29.  Influence  of 
changed  conditions  in  foreign  lands.  Broad  effects  of  the  European  war, 

32.  Italian  emigration  increasingly  temporary,  34.  Reemigration  and 
its  ways,  35.  The  development  of  emigration  from  the  various  regions 
of  Italy,  37.  Evidences  of  the  temporary  character,  especially  the  oc- 
cupational evidence,  38.  A final  word:  the  net  loss  of  population,  42. 


BOOK  II.— CAUSES 

CHAPTER  III 

Introductory  47-50 

Character  of  the  causes  to  be  sought,  47.  How  regional  differences  are 
to  be  treated,  48.  The  broad  effects  of  foreign  competition  in  agri- 
culture, 49. 

CHAPTER  IV 

South  Italy.  I.  Nature  and  Man 51-63 

A deficient  rainfall  and  what  it  implies,  5 1 . The  decline  of  the  forests,  53. 

The  abolition  of  feudalism  and  the  secularization  of  Church  lands  as 


IX 


X 


CONTENTS 


modem  determinants  of  deforestation,  54.  The  physical  effects  of 
deforestation  and  their  consequences  for  agriculture,  56.  The  preva- 
lence and  spread  of  malaria,  59.  The  consequences  of  malaria  for  agri- 
culture, 61.  Earthquakes,  63. 


CHAPTER  V 

South  Italy.  II.  The  Agricultural  System 64-82 

Introductory,  64.  Changes  in  the  proprietorship  of  land  before  and 
after  the  abolition  of  feudalism,  65.  The  sale  of  ecclesiastical  lands,  65. 
Influence  of  the  succession  laws,  68.  The  general  result:  the  number 
of  proprietors  has  decreased,  69.  The  rise  and  recent  extent  of  absentee 
landlordism,  69.  Absenteeism  necessitates  contract  cultivation.  The 
gabellotlo,  72.  A survey  of  modem  agrarian  contracts,  74.  Many  estates 
are  too  small,  77.  The  large  proprietors  neglect  their  lands.  Position 
of  the  medium-sized  estate,  77.  Defects  of  the  systems  of  tenancy,  79. 
Obsolete  implements  and  methods,  81.  A general  summary,  82. 


CHAPTER  VI 

South  Italy.  III.  The  People  and  their  Emigration  . 83-105 

The  several  agricultural  classes,  83.  Has  there  been  exploitation  ? The 
workings  of  competition,  86.  Usury,  88.  The  loss  of  common  rights,  88. 
Where  the  tax  burden  falls,  89.  Conditions  of  living:  housing  and  food. 
Physique.  The  family,  94.  Schooling.  Religion,  96.  Recreation. 
Crime,  97.  Politics,  and  a word  of  history,  98.  A test  of  the  well-knit 
society,  100.  Protest:  revolution,  the  strike  and  emigration,  100.  The 
beginnings  and  course  of  emigration,  102.  The  late  start  of  the  exodus 
from  Sicily,  103. 


CHAPTER  VII 


North  Italy  106-126 

The  relatively  advantageous  circumstances  of  North  Italy,  106.  Cli- 
mate and  a remedy  for  drought,  107.  Diffusion  of  the  small  property, 

109.  The  medium-sized  and  large  property.  Absenteeism,  no.  Cul- 
tivation by  contract,  112.  Defects  of  the  agricultural  system.  The 
disesteem  of  rural  economy,  114.  The  people.  The  classes  considered 
separately,  117.  The  tax  situation,  120.  Life  and  culture,  121.  The 
exodus  from  mountains  and  plains.  The  permanent  emigration,  122. 

An  emigration  specialty:  the  seasonal  non-agricultural  movement. 

The  temporary  emigration  in  a new  light,  122.  Conclusion,  125. 


CONTENTS 


XI 


BOOK  III.— IN  FOREIGN  LANDS 

CHAPTER  VIII 

France 129-150 

The  coming  of  the  Italians,  129.  Their  place  in  agriculture,  131.  Where 
they  have  congregated:  Paris,  Marseilles,  Toulon,  Lyons,  134.  The 
Briey  district,  138.  The  French  standpoint,  140.  The  Italian  experi- 
ence, 143.  A general  view,  148. 

CHAPTER  IX 

Germany 1 51-170 

The  expansion  and  distribution  of  Italian  immigration,  151.  South 
Germany:  brick  ovens  and  textile  industries,  154.  West  Germany:  the 
powerful  attraction  of  mines  and  industries,  155.  North  and  East 
Germany,  159.  The  economic  gain  to  the  country,  160.  The  ruling 
attitude,  161.  The  reaction  of  German  labor,  163.  The  earning  and 
living  of  the  Italians,  165.  Conclusion,  170. 


CHAPTER  X 

Switzerland 171-188 

The  coming  of  the  Italians,  171.  Their  importance  in  farming  and  in 
quarrying,  173.  Their  unique  place  in  general  construction  work,  174. 

Their  role  in  building,  manufacturing  and  trade,  177.  The  Swiss  point 
of  view,  180.  Earnings  and  savings  of  the  Italians,  182.  Their  way  of 
living,  185. 

CHAPTER  XI 

Austria-hungary 189-202 

The  newer  immigrants  and  their  relation  to  prior  settlements  of  Italians, 

189.  Men,  women,  and  children  in  the  Tyrol  and  Vorarlberg,  192. 
About  the  head  of  the  Adriatic.  Construction  laborers,  and  the  fisher- 
men of  Chioggia,  194.  Eastward  from  the  Adriatic,  196.  The  Austro- 
Hungarian  reaction,  198.  The  Italian  experience,  199. 


CHAPTER  XII 

Other  Countries  of  Europe.  North  Africa  ....  203-222 

Western  and  Southern  Europe,  especially  Great  Britain,  203.  Eastern 
Europe  and  contiguous  Asia,  206.  Egypt;  canal  and  dam  construc- 
tion, 212.  Tripoli.  The  large  venture  in  Tunisia,  214.  Algeria,  219. 


Xll 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  XIII 

Argentina.  I.  An  Economic  Renaissance.  The 

Italians  in  Agriculture 223-251 

The  colonial  period  and  its  legacy,  223.  The  history  of  immigration 
policy,  224.  The  beginnings  and  expansion  of  Italian  immigration, 

226.  Two  periods  of  Argentine  history,  and  the  relation  of  the  Italians 
to  the  second,  229.  The  development  of  agricultural  colonization,  231. 

The  Italian  factor  in  the  colonies,  234.  The  general  verdict,  238.  The 
Italians  in  other  than  the  cereal  provinces.  The  vineyards  of  Men- 
doza, 239.  Terms  of  the  acquisition  of  land,  240.  Difficulties  of  attain- 
ing proprietorship;  the  usual  evolution,  241.  Types  of  hired  labor,  243. 
Cultivation  under  contract,  245.  Trials  and  fortunes  of  earlier  days,  246. 

The  twentieth  century;  ebb-tide  of  prosperity,  249. 

CHAPTER  XIV 

Argentina.  II.  Non- Agricultural  Pursuits.  General 

Role  and  Influence  of  the  Italians  ....  252-278 

The  older  Argentine  population  and  the  Italian  newcomers,  252.  The 
mariners  of  Genoa,  253.  Characteristic  urban  employments,  254.  Arch- 
itecture, engineering,  construction,  257.  Industry,  260.  Trade,  262. 

A word  on  accumulated  gains,  263.  The  role  of  non-Italian  peoples, 

264.  Deficiencies  and  virtues  of  the  Italians,  265.  Conditions  and  prob- 
lems of  living,  268.  Phases  of  assimilation,  270.  Influence  upon  the 
race  stock  of  Argentina,  274.  The  newer  Argentina  and  the  outlook 
for  immigration,  276. 

CHAPTER  XV 

Brazil.  I.  The  Coffee  Plantations 279-298 

Introductory,  279.  Colonization  policy  before  1875,  279-  The  promise 
of  coffee.  The  relation  of  immigration  to  the  abolition  of  slavery,  282. 

The  great  boom  and  its  end,  285.  Italian  immigration  and  its  distribu- 
tion, 287.  The  Italian  part  in  coffee  production,  289.  The  cultivator’s 
bargain  with  the  planter;  the  rising  storm,  291.  Light  and  dark  in  the 
experience  of  the  Italians,  294. 

CHAPTER  XVI 

Brazil.  II.  Pioneer  Farming.  General  Aspects  of 

Italian  Life 299-319 

Fazenda  and  small  property,  299.  Development  of  small  property 
colonization  slight  in  Sao  Paulo,  unsuccessful  in  Espirito  Santo,  300. 

The  larger  development  in  Parana,  302.  Santa  Catharina,  303.  Rio 
Grande  do  Sul  and  the  highest  development  of  Italian  farming,  305. 

A summary  view  of  life  in  the  southern  colonies,  309.  Possible  ways 


CONTENTS 


Xlll 


of  improving  the  situation  of  the  coffee-growing  Italians,  3r2.  Italians  in 
construction  work,  3T3.  The  townsfolk,  314.  The  experience  and 
influence  of  the  Italians,  316. 

CHAPTER  XVII 

United  States.  I.  Coming  of  the  Italians.  Some 

Specialized  Types 320-341 

Stage  of  development  of  the  country  into  which  the  Italians  came,  320. 
Types  and  traits  of  Italian  immigrants  before  1880,  323.  The  expan- 
sion of  Italian  immigration  since  r88o  and  its  distribution,  327.  Musi- 
cians and  other  professional  types,  329.  Immigrants  in  occupations 
requiring  skill  or  intelligence — -a  preliminary  survey,  33 r.  Bootblacks, 
barbers  and  cobblers,  334.  Dealers  and  restaurant  folk,  337.  Fisher- 
men, 340. 

CHAPTER  XVIII 

United  States.  II.  The  Wage-earning  Majority  . . 342-362 

To  a degree  rare  among  immigrants  into  the  United  States,  the  Italians 
have  entered  industrial  occupations,  342.  The  metal  and  wood  trades, 
textiles  and  clothing,  miscellaneous  branches.  The  employment  of 
women,  344.  Miners  of  coal  and  the  metals.  Quarrymen,  349.  Work- 
ers in  the  building  trades,  352.  The  construction  and  maintenance  of 
public  works,  353.  The  longshoremen  — an  instance  of  rapid  displace- 
ment of  labor,  355.  The  railways:  the  most  characteristic  field  of 
Italian  labor,  357.  Industrial  qualities  of  the  railway  workers,  360. 

CHAPTER  XEX 

United  States.  III.  The  Agricultural  Situation  . 363-373 

Relatively  few  Italians  have  engaged  in  agriculture.  Three  types,  363. 
Settlements  in  the  North,  South  and  West,  366.  Some  generalizations 
on  the  Italian  experiments,  369.  Why  do  not  more  Italians  take  up 
farming  ? 371.  What  successful  colonization  requires,  372. 

CHAPTER  XX 

United  States.  IV.  The  Italian  Experience  ....  374-41 1 

Remittances  to  Italy  and  the  ownership  of  property  as  evidences  of 
well-being,  374.  Direct  testimony,  376.  Considerations  of  employment, 
wages,  saving,  377.  The  place  of  woman  in  the  family^So.  Housing, 

381.  Food,  386.  The  question  of  health,  386.  Exploitation,  390. 
Societies  and  the  regionalist  spirit,  393.  Problems  of  assimilation,  394. 
Political  spirit  and  activity,  398.  Attitude  of  the  American  employing 
and  laboring  classes,  400.  Crime  and  dependency,  404.  Other  factors  i n 
the  American  attitude.  The  literacy  test  law,  407 . A further  word  on 
assimilation.  The  future,  409. 


XIV 


CONTENTS 


BOOK  IV.  — ITALY  AMONG  THE  NATIONS 

CHAPTER  XXI 

The  Emigrants  — A Study  of  Motive  and  Trait  . . 415-444 

Introductory,  415.  The  emigrant  partly  driven,  partly  attracted.  The 
speculative  factor,  415.  A factor  which  emigration  has  in  common  with 
the  country-to-city  migration.  Active  and  dull  spirits,  418.  The 
pecuniary  motive  and  its  relation  to  ideal  considerations,  419.  The 
passion  to  save  and  the  excesses  to  which  it  leads,  422.  Prudentialism, 

425.  Patriotism.  The  paradox  of  the  return  home,  426.  The  play  of 
foreign  attraction,  429.  The  deep  tincture  of  regionalism,  430.  Cer- 
tain manifestations  of  individualism,  433.  Individualism  and  display, 

435.  The  primitive  or  untutored  mind  and  character;  revealed  in  mat- 
ters of  hygiene,  crime,  superstition,  the  place  of  woman,  437.  The 
phenomena  of  change  and  growth  in  foreign  lands,  441. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

Italy  Once  More  — Consequences  and  Reactions  of 

Emigration 445-473 

Introductory,  445.  Remittance  of  savings.  International  balances. 

The  evidence  of  the  postal  banks,  445.  Effects  of  the  abstraction  of  labor 
upon  the  cultivation  of  the  fields,  449.  The  agricultural  classes.  Pur- 
chases of  land  by  emigrants  who  return.  Usury,  450.  Are  better 
methods  of  cultivation  introduced  ? 452.  The  incomes  of  the  people, 

454.  The  varying  fortunes  of  those  who  return,  456.  Erection  and 
purchase  of  houses  and  other  evidences  of  a new  standard  of  living,  457. 
Mental  and  moral  traits  of  the  returned  emigrants,  458.  School  attend- 
ance, 460.  Health  of  the  people,  461.  Alcoholism  and  crime,  464. 

The  military  power  of  Italy,  465.  The  development  of  navigation  and 
trade,  467.  The  size  and  composition  of  the  population,  468.  The 
costs  of  sustaining  a great  emigration,  472. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

Phases  of  Opinion  and  Policy  in  Italy  474-501 

Three  Periods,  474.  The  First:  until  about  1895,  474.  The  Second: 
about  1895-1908,  475.  The  epochal  law  of  1901  and  its  supplements, 

47;.  The  private  organisations.  The  Humanitarian  Society  and  the 
emigration  secretariates,  482.  Religious  and  lay  societies,  484.  The 
Third  Period:  since  about  1908,  486.  Citizenship,  the  double  citizen- 
ship issue,  and  the  law  of  1912,  486.  The  revival  of  imperialism.  The 
Colonial  Institute  and  the  Emigrant  Congresses,  491.  The  Nationalist 


CONTENTS 


XV 


movement  and  its  emigration  argument,  493.  The  Tripoli  expedition. 
The  role  of  Nationalism,  496.  The  imperialist  aftermath.  The  special 
character  of  Italian  expansionism,  499. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

Conclusions.  The  Larger  Tasks  Ahead 502-525 

Introductory,  502.  Reflections  on  the  value  of  emigration  to  the  Italians 
and  to  Italy,  502.  Its  place  in  a world  economy,  506.  Its  limitations  as 
a measure  of  relief,  508.  A criticism  of  the  Italian  attitude,  508.  Eco- 
nomic reforms  needed,  510.  Cultural  reforms,  513.  The  role  of  the  State. 
Democratic  consequences  of  reform,  515.  External  policy:  Protection, 

517.  International  coercion.  The  literacy  test  law  again,  518.  Bi- 
national agreement,  520.  An  international  conference  proposed,  521. 


The  question  of  a colony,  524. 

Appendix.  Memoranda  Supplementary  to  Book  I ...  529 

Bibliographical  Index 537 

General  Index  547 


ABBREVIATIONS 

Boll.  Emig.  Bollettino  dell’  Emigrazione,  some  twelve  to  twenty  numbers  a year, 
issued  since  1902  by  the  Commissariato  dell’  Emigrazione. 

Emig.  e Col.  Emigrazione  e Colonie,  special  reports  by  diplomatic  and  consular 
officials,  1893  and  1903-09. 

Inch.  Agr.  Atti  della  Giunta  per  la  Inchiesta  Agraria  e sulle  Condizioni  delle 
Classi  Agricole,  15  vols.,  Rome,  1879-84. 

Inch.  Pari.  Inchiesta  Parlamentare  sulle  Condizioni  dei  Contadini  nelle  Provincie 
Meridionali  e nella  Sicilia,  8 vols.,  Rome,  1909-n. 


He  abandons  the  niggardly  soil  as  the  swallow  forsakes 
the  inclement  skies;  he  returns  to  his  familiar  and 
cherished  hut  as  the  bird  repairs  to  its  old  nest. 


E.  Morpcrgo,  1882 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION 


BOOK  I 

MAIN  CURRENTS 


CHAPTER  I 


DEPARTURE 

What  gives  importance  to  an  epoch  of  geographical  discovery  is 
the  character  and  consequence  of  the  single  voyage.  One  voyage 
may  even  define  an  epoch;  and  any  voyage  that  shows  persist- 
ence in  a hard  quest  or  that  braves  unknown  realms  finds  a world 
eager  to  listen  to  the  tale  of  its  adventure.  With  an  epoch  of  mi- 
gration a different  emphasis  appears.  The  country  of  destination 
is  known,  its  wonders  have  become  accepted,  even  commonplace. 
The  journey  thither  is  no  longer  unique;  it  is  the  experience  of  the 
multitude.  Then  it  is  not  the  single  traveller,  but  the  compre- 
hensive group  alone,  which  makes  history.  Or  if  perchance  an 
emigrant  write  the  tale  of  his  own  adventure,  the  world  will  peruse 
it  only  if  pleased  to  regard  his  as  the  typical  career,  as  the  minia- 
ture representation  of  the  collective  whole.  Those  who  compose 
a great  migration  may  be  never  so  ordinary;  en  masse  they  arrest 
attention.  The  steerage  is  negligible  — but  not  a thousand  times 
the  steerage.  So  reckoned  and  tested,  a million  men  outweigh  a 
thousand;  and  ten  millions  are  a nation.  The  farther  one  moves 
from  the  experience  of  the  individual,  the  nearer  one  approaches 
to  some  of  the  essential  traits  of  the  world  of  men. 

Emigration  from  Italy  belongs  among  the  extraordinary  move- 
ments of  mankind.  In  its  chief  lineaments  it  has  no  like.  Through 
the  number  of  men  it  has  involved  and  the  courses  it  has  pursued, 
through  its  long  continuance  on  a great  scale  and  its  role  in  other 
lands,  it  stands  alone.  Its  overwhelming  general  character  lights 
up  the  details  of  its  development,  and  gives  them  lasting  signifi- 
cance. How  it  began  and  grew,  what  paths  it  has  followed,  to 
what  lands  it  has  gone  by  predilection,  these  are  fit  questions  for 
study.  Particularly  we  must  ask  how  commonly  it  happens  that 
this  emigration  retraces  its  ways;  with  what  frequency  Italians, 


4 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


once  out  of  Italy,  return  home,  and  so  for  a time  or  finally  put  an 
end  to  their  journeying. 

These  questions  are  not  new.  They  have  been  asked  and 
answered  frequently.  Yet  a casual  reading  of  writings  published 
in  Italy  and  in  other  countries  discloses  wide  discrepancies  in  the 
answers.  Where  official  sources  are  directly  quoted,  the  dif- 
ferences are  not  less  pronounced  than  in  the  more  popular  writ- 
ings, where  no  special  regard  is  had  for  sources.  Inevitably,  a 
study  of  the  validity  of  the  official  statistics  themselves  must 
precede  any  unqualified  acceptance  of  figures.  In  the  end,  how- 
ever, it  should  be  possible  to  attain  some  fairly  definite  conception 
of  the  volume  of  the  emigrant  tide,  both  in  its  flux  and  reflux. 

What,  first,  of  the  outgoing  tide  ? What  has  been  the  history 
of  emigration  from  Italy  ? It  is  not  enough  to  understand 
by  emigrant  one  who  expatriates  himself  for  permanent  settle- 
ment in  another  country.  Such  a limited  definition  has  been 
appropriate  in  cases  where  it  amply  covered  the  common  practice, 
and  it  has  been  persistently  current  among  the  nations.  By  tradi- 
tion in  Italy  too  it  had  a vogue,  and  the  opposition  to  Sig.  Bodio 
was  strong  when,  years  ago,  he  insisted  that  those  also  were  emi- 
grants who  left  their  country  for  temporary  settlement  elsewhere. 
Fortunately,  having  regard  for  the  characteristics  of  the  Italian 
movement,  Bodio’s  wider  definition  won  acceptance;  and  in 
time  an  emigrant  became,  officially,  anyone  not  travelling  for 
pleasure,  health  or  business,  who  went  abroad  either  for  per- 
manent settlement  or  temporarily,  for  a period  often  less  than  a 
year. 

It  is  certain  that  the  modern  emigration  of  Italians  was  well 
under  way  long  before  the  official  collection  of  statistics  was 
undertaken.  While  in  some  parts  of  Italy,  notably  the  South, 
severe  laws  barred  all  emigration  during  the  first  decades  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  movement  in  other  parts  was  relatively  free. 
Duval  gives  occasional  figures  for  the  transoceanic  emigration  of 
this  earlier  period,  based  on  material  (gleaned  from  various 
sources)  in  the  Emigration  Bureau  of  the  French  Ministry  of  the 
Interior.  In  the  years  1835-42,  he  says,  7894  Sardinians  arrived 


DEPARTURE 


5 


at  Montevideo;  in  1856,  2738  Sardinians  sailed  for  Buenos  Aires; 
in  June,  i860,  there  were  12,755  Italians  in  Algeria;  and  so  forth.1 
In  these  years,  as  the  American  figures  show,  few  Italians  came 
into  the  United  States.  When  Correnti,  in  1858,  published  a 
compilation  of  many  sorts  of  Italian  statistics,  he  estimated  that 
some  30,000  Italians  were  living  in  South  America.  “ In  these 
last  months  an  Italian  colony  was  venturesomely  planted  in 
Mexico,  a mere  sapling  on  the  shore  of  a turbulent  sea.”  Italian 
laborers,  he  said,  were  in  Switzerland,  Belgium,  and  England.  In 
France  there  were  63,000,  chiefly  seamen,  soldiers,  and  workmen, 
“ many  of  them  among  the  most  intelligent  silk  workers  of  the 
Lyons  mills.”  2 Little  accuracy  can  be  claimed  for  the  figures 
published  in  the  Italian  census  of  1861,  but  they  serve  for  general 
indications.  The  temporary  emigration  of  the  census  year  had 
amounted  to  nearly  44,000  persons.  From  various  sources  it 
was  calculated  that  the  Italian  colonies  in  Switzerland  and  Ger- 
many comprised  nearly  14,000  persons  each,  the  colony  in 
England  4500,  in  France  76,500,  in  Tunis  6000,  and  in  Alexan- 
dria 1 2, 000. 3 What  emerges  clearly  from  most  of  the  accounts 
is  that  the  early  emigrants  were  chiefly  from  the  Alpine  slopes 
of  Italy  and  from  the  Ligurian  coast.  Some  connection  in  time 
there  surely  has  been  with  the  old  commercial  voyages  of  the 
North  Italians.  Did  not  an  ancient  saying  hold  that  “In  what- 
ever quarter  of  the  world  you  open  an  egg  a Genoese  will  spring 
from  it  ” ? 

In  Italy  this  early  emigration  appears  not  to  have  roused 
much  attention.  Serious  enough  problems  of  other  sorts  pressed 
for  solution.  Besides,  the  impulse,  though  imminent,  was  yet  to 
come,  which  would  swell  the  streamlet  to  the  proportions  of  a 
flood.  From  i860  on,  our  knowledge  begins  to  be  more  precise. 
Leone  Carpi,  perhaps  fairly  to  be  regarded  as  the  first  Italian  to 

1 J.  Duval,  Histoire  de  V emigration  au  XIXe  siecle  (Paris,  1862),  pp.  155  ff., 
248  ff. 

2 C.  Correnti,  Annuario  statistico  italiano,  Anno  1, 1857-1858  (Turin  and  Milan, 
1858),  pp.  441  f.  Despite  its  title,  this  work  is  not  official. 

3 Censimento  generale,  31  dicembre  1861  (3  vols.),  i,  p.  xxix.  Part  of  the  census 
description  of  the  Italians  in  France  is  taken  almost  literally  from  Correnti.  The 
figure  for  temporary  emigration  is  the  earliest  I have  found. 


6 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


study  broadly  the  emigration  of  his  people,  wrote,  “ Numerous 
provinces  which  before  i860  made  no  contribution  to  the  stream 
sent  contingents,  from  1861  to  1869,  which  were  annually  larger. 
In  other  provinces  where  by  tradition  emigration  had  been  moder- 
ate and  wholesome  it  took  on  large  proportions.”  1 Indeed,  by 
the  end  of  this  decade  (if  not  earlier,  for  no  figures  apply  before 
1869)  more  than  a hundred  thousand  Italians  per  year  were 
quitting  their  country,  and  the  proportion  to  her  population  was 
already  such  as  to  place  Italy  beside  Germany  as  a land  of  emi- 
gration. With  the  help  of  the  ministries  of  the  Interior  and  of 
Foreign  Affairs,  Carpi  compiled  a set  of  annual  figures,  which, 
somewhat  revised,  have  been  given  virtually  an  official  status. 
They  follow: 


Year  Total  Temporary  Permanent  Clandestine 

1869  119,806  83,565  22,201  14,040 

1870  111,459  83,588  16,427  11,444 

1871  122,479  96,384  15,027  11,068 

1872  146,265  ? ? 5,585 

1873  151,781  ? ? n,92i 

1874  108,601  ? ? 17,362 

1875  103,348  ? ? 27,253 


iThe  decrease  in  1870,  Carpi  ascribed,  not  without  good  ground, 
to  the  Franco-Prussian  war.  Clandestine  emigrants  were  com- 
monly workmen,  clergy,  students,  and  others  who  departed  with- 
out a passport,  largely  to  escape  military  service.  From  1874  to 
1876,  when  restrictions  were  inforce  regarding  the  issuance  of  pass- 
ports for  America,  it  is  likely  that  the  clandestine  emigrants  were 
much  more  numerous  than  indicated.  Indeed,  a parliamentary 
commission  was  unwilling,  in  1879,  to  admit  that  there  had  been  a 
decrease  in  emigration  since  18 73. 2 Partly  because  of  difficulties 
in  securing  his  figures  which  Carpi  himself  mentions,  partly  for 

1 See  Carpi's  chief  work:  Dette  colonie  e dell’  emigrazione  d'italiani  all’eslero  solto 
Vaspetto  dell’  industria,  commercio,  agricoltura  e con  trattazione  d’importanti  queslioni 
sociali  (4  vols.,  Milan,  1874),  i,  p.  17;  in  an  earlier  work  more  specific  evidence  is 
given.  See  also  G.  Florenzano,  Della  emigrazione  italiana  in  America  comparata 
alle  altre  emigrazioni  europee  (Naples,  1874),  ch.  6.  (This  work  includes  results  of 
the  author’s  own  inquiry  in  several  provinces.) 

2 I.  Sachs,  L'llalie,  ses  finances  et  son  developpement  economique  depnis  l’ unifica- 
tion du  Royamne  (Paris,  1885),  p.  934. 


DEPARTURE 


7 


reasons  next  to  be  set  forth,  all  of  these  early  statistics  for  total 
emigration  have  probably  to  be  revised  upward  — no  one  can  say 
by  how  much. 

In  1876  the  Italian  Bureau  of  Statistics  1 began  an  important 
collection  of  figures  which  has  been  continued  to  the  present  day. 
It  is  the  only  series  which  covers  a long  period  of  years  and  in- 
cludes emigration  into  the  countries  of  Europe  and  North  Africa. 
It  is  the  only  series  which  gives  the  emigration  by  compartments, 
provinces,  and  communes.2 * *  It  possesses  further  the  extrinsic  im- 
portance of  having  been  more  widely  quoted  than  any  other 
series;  partly  for  the  reasons  given,  partly  — as  regards  emigra- 
tion to  transoceanic  countries  — because  of  ignorance  of  better 
statistics.  Consider  some  of  the  more  significant  figures  of  this 
collection.  For  quinquennial  periods  before  1911,1  have  prepared 
annual  averages : 

Annual  Average  Number  of  Emigrants 


Europe  and  the 

Mediterranean  Transoceanic 

Period  All  countries  basin  countries 

1876-1880 108,797  82,201  26,596 

1881-1885 IS4>I4I  95,146  58,995 

1886-1890 221,977  90,694  131,283 

1891-1895 256,511  109,067  147,444 

1896-1900 310,435  148,533  161,901 

1901-1905 554,050  244,808  309,242 

1906-1910 651,287  257,593  393,694 

Number  of  Emigrants 

Year 

1906 787,977  276,042  511,935 

I9°7 704,675  288,774  41S, 9QI 

I9°8 486,674  248,101  238,573 

I9°9 625,637  226,355  399,282 

I910 651,475  248,696  402,779 

I9H 533,844  271,065  262,779 

1912  711,446  308,I40  403,306 

1913  872,598  313,032  559,566 

!9J4 479,041  245,897  233,144 


1 I shall  thus  translate  Direzione  Generale  della  Statistica.  The  annual  figures 
are  published  in  reports  styled  Statistica  della  emigrazione. 

2 The  sixteen  compartimenti  embrace  the  sixty-nine  provincie.  The  comparti- 

mento  is  not  an  administrative  division,  but  is  maintained  in  official  classifications 

because  it  conveniently  marks  off  regional  differences. 


8 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


The  total  number  of  recorded  emigrants  for  the  thirty-one  years 
1876-1914  is  about  fourteen  million.  In  both  the  overseas  emi- 
gration and  the  European  a great  growth  has  taken  place.  The 
quinquennium  1886-90  marks  a turning  point:  while  the  total 
emigration  increased  much,  that  into  Europe  changed  slightly, 
and  for  the  first  time  in  its  career  was  surpassed  by  the  American 
current.  In  other  words,  the  stream  that  had  begun  to  flow  so 
copiously  into  Europe  was  now  largely  diverted  into  America, 
more  than  doubling  the  earlier  volume.  In  the  quarter  century 
that  has  since  elapsed,  the  emigration  into  America  has  ap- 
parently remained  in  excess  of  that  into  Europe.  In  1901  there 
was  a sharp  bound  in  the  movement.  The  new  level  was  virtually 
maintained  until  1905,  when  another  bound  occurred,  chiefly  in 
the  overseas  emigration;  and  in  1913  the  new  level  was  in  turn 
exceeded. 

To  the  ending  of  the  war  with  Turkey  and  to  the  return  of  con- 
ditions of  prosperity  in  the  United  States  the  high  figure  of  1913 
must  be  ascribed.  The  new  exodus  was  still  proceeding  when  the 
shock  came  of  the  outbreak  of  the  European  war.  Promptly,  on 
August  6,  1914,  a royal  decree  suspended  the  emigration  of  all 
men  of  military  age.  At  the  point  of  embarkation,  men  subject 
to  eventual  recall  for  service  were  detained;  likewise  women, 
children,  and  the  aged  going  to  rejoin  men  subject  to  military 
duty.  What  with  the  restrictions  upon  the  issuance  of  passports, 
the  dangers  to  navigation,  and  the  suspension  of  the  steamship 
service,  the  great  movement  of  Italian  emigration,  caught  almost 
at  its  zenith,  was  violently  brought  to  a stop. 

Consider  now  the  figures  for  emigration  into  the  principal 
countries  of  Europe: 

Annual  Average  Number  of  Emigrants 


Period  Austria-Hungary  France  Switzerland  Germany 

1876-1880 19,196  36,256  12,884  7,315 

1881-1885 25,625  44,500  7,032  6,927 

1886-1890 34,n8  30,114  7,203  10,351 

1891-1895 36,345  26,897  12,166  15,249 

1896-1900 46,287  24,960  25,647  30,941 

1901-1905 54,454  54,299  53,828  56,021 

1906-1910 37,138  60,224  77,305  62,199 


DEPARTURE 


9 


Number  or  Emigrants 

Year  Austria-Hungary  France  Switzerland  Germany 

1906  39,521  62,497  80,019  67,620 

1907  41,953  63,105  83,026  75,885 

1908  36,998  57,702  76,708  59,780 

1909  30,989  56,863  66,931  53,391 

1910  36,233  60,956  79,843  53,648 

I9H 35,099  63,370  88,777  64,950 

1912 42,010  74,089  89,258  75,507 


Into  each  of  these  countries  emigration  has  been  much  greater 
than  into  any  other  country  of  Europe.  For  each  it  averaged 
about  54,000  persons  a year  in  1901-05.  From  1876  to  1885  the 
emigration  into  European  countries  was  greatest  into  France; 
from  1886  to  1900,  greatest  into  Austria-Hungary.  Before  1900 
the  emigration  into  Hungary  was  about  half  that  into  Austria; 
since,  it  has  run  one-tenth  to  one-fourth.  Emigration  into  France 
reached  its  lowest  point  in  1896;  so  sensitively  does  the  barom- 
eter of  emigration  register  a period  of  strained  relations.  In 
1901  the  emigration  into  France  suddenly  sprang  to  a new  level, 
which  it  has  maintained.  From  the  middle  eighties  to  1905  the 
average  annual  emigration  into  Switzerland  has,  roughly  speak- 
ing, doubled  with  each  quinquennium;  in  subsequent  years  this 
emigration  has  been  greater  than  that  into  any  other  country  of 
Europe.  Since  1890  emigration  into  Germany  has  progressed 
similarly,  but  not  to  such  heights.  Throughout  the  previous 
decade  Germany  was  herself  still  sending  forth  heavy  annual 
quotas  of  emigrants,  and  indeed  in  the  earlier  nineties  also,  so 
that  she  could  hardly  be  expected  to  receive  many  immigrants, 
even  from  such  a country  as  Italy. 

These  four  countries  lie  very  near  to  Italy.  It  is  simpler  for  the 
North  Italian  to  enter  Ticino  than  to  migrate  to  Central  Italy. 
Ventimiglia  is  at  once  Vintimille.  Belluno  and  Udine,  great 
reservoirs  of  temporary  emigrants,  lie  merely  across  the  border 
from  Austria-Hungary.1  Hence  the  emigration  is  in  some  respects 
more  of  a kind  with  the  extraordinary  internal  migration  of  Italy 
than  with  the  transoceanic  movement. 

1 Of  late  years,  however,  the  emigration  from  these  provinces  has  been  more 
strongly  into  Germany  (especially  Bavaria)  than  into  Austria-Hungary. 


IO 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


To  the  outlying  countries  of  Europe  not  many  emigrants  have 
gone.  By  hundreds  oftener  than  by  thousands,  they  have  moved 
into  Russia,  Spain,  Portugal,  Holland,  Belgium,  the  Scandinavian 
countries.  They  have  had,  however,  a long  and  notable  history  in 
Great  Britain;  since  1900,  steadily  year  by  year,  3000-4000  have 
immigrated,  including  some  hundreds  to  Ireland.  Only  the 
smallness  of  the  territory  of  Luxemburg  justifies  inclusion  of  the 
grand  duchy  in  the  minor  countries,  for  a pronounced  immigra- 
tion, running  easily  to  2000  a year,  has  entered  there.  The  Balkan 
states,  one  of  the  older  fields,  received  in  1890-1900  an  average  of 
about  14,000  a year,  but  since  1900  have  received  less  than  3500 
a year. 

Fluctuating  about  one  or  two  thousand  a year  before  1904, 
Egypt  in  that  year  and  in  1905  received  4500,  soon,  however,  re- 
lapsing to  2000-2500.  Before  1900,  Algeria  and  Tunisia  received 
together  less  than  4000  a year;  after  1907,  about  4000.  Generally 
Tunisia  has  received  many  more  than  Algeria.  In  1911,  for  the 
first  time,  Tripoli  received  as  many  as  a thousand;  in  1912  more 
than  7400  — a reminder  that  on  November  5,  1911,  by  royal 
decree,  Tripoli  and  Cyrenaica  were  brought  under  the  full  sov- 
ereignty of  Italy.  Only  fluctuating  numbers  have  gone  into 
western  Asia. 

What  now  of  the  value  of  these  figures  ? The  early  official  re- 
ports made  few  qualifications.  “ On  the  whole,”  says  one  of  them, 
“ we  have  reason  to  believe  that  our  statistics  . . . represent 
with  sufficient  approximation  the  departure  of  our  compatriots  in 
search  of  temporary  occupation  or  of  permanent  employment.”  1 
In  1902  a slightly  more  guarded  statement  appears:  “ Although 
the  authorities  endeavor  to  keep  as  accurate  an  account  as  pos- 
sible of  those  who  emigrate,  whether  for  some  months  only,  or  for 
an  indefinite  period,  yet  the  official  statistics  do  not  succeed  in 
measuring  the  movement  with  absolute  precision.” 2 

Upon  the  method  of  collecting  the  figures  we  have  explicit 
knowledge.  Whoever  would  emigrate  is  expected  to  apply  in 

1 Statistica  della  emigrazione  nell'  anno  1887,  p.  iv. 

2 Statistica  della  emigrazione  negli  anni  1900  e 1901,  p.  5. 


DEPARTURE 


II 


person  or  in  writing  to  the  sindaco  (mayor)  of  his  commune,  who 
after  granting  the  nulla-osta  (which  indicates  that  there  are  no 
legal  obstacles  to  departure)  procures  the  passport  from  the  pre- 
fect or  sub-prefect  of  the  province,  and  delivers  it  to  the  appli- 
cant. Until  1901  the  passport  for  a laborer  cost  2.40  lire.  Since 
1901  it  has  been  free.  The  sindaco  recorded  the  number  of  those 
who  had  been  granted  the  nulla-osta  and  the  number  of  those 
who,  by  whatever  avenues  of  information,  had  been  reported  as 
having  gone  without  a passport;  and  the  combined  numbers  he 
called  the  emigration  from  his  commune.  In  1904  the  work  of 
compilation  was  taken  over  by  the  officers  of  public  safety,  who 
every  three  months,  in  every  circondario  and  province,  performed 
their  task  upon  the  basis  of  passports  actually  granted. 

If  all  emigrants  procured  passports,  or  if  all  those  who  did  not 
were  registered  by  the  sindaco,  and  if  none  that  did  procure  them 
subsequently  stayed  at  home  instead  of  leaving  the  country, 
there  would  be  no  reason  to  question  the  final  totals  for  emigra- 
tion. But  the  if’s  are  momentous.  Since  1901  the  passport  has 
been  obligatory  for  all  emigrants  sailing  from  Italy  or  enrolled  in 
North  Italy  to  sail  by  authorized  carriers  from  Havre.  But  the 
obligatory  provision  did  not  apply  before  1901,  nor  has  it  ever 
applied  to  emigration  into  countries  of  Europe  or  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean basin.  Clearly,  another  test  must  guide  us.  Does  the  use- 
fulness of  the  passport  make  it  a desirable  document  to  possess  ? 
Undoubtedly,  in  some  countries  of  Europe,  though  not  even  in  all 
of  the  important  ones,  the  passport  materially  helps  the  emigrant 
to  get  work.  But  he  may  not  apprehend  its  advantages.  He  may 
expect  to  return  to  Italy  soon,  and  may  not  think  it  worth  the 
necessary  inconvenience  (before  the  charge  was  abandoned  the 
outlay  equalled  from  one  to  three  days’  wages) . 

Other  considerations  are  important.  At  many  points  of  the 
long  land  border  it  is  easy  to  cross  afoot.1  The  propertyless  con- 
tadino,  migrating  from  one  province  to  another,  and  recorded,  if 
at  all,  merely  as  an  internal  migrant,  may  be  induced  to  join 

1 P.  Baldioli-Chiorando,  e.g.,  has  written  (“  L’emigrazione  in  alcuni  paesi  della 
provincia  di  Cuneo,”  Riforma  Sociale,  October,  1913,  p.  853):  “A  good  half 
(mostly  women)  make  the  journey  afoot,  thus  sacrificing  a week’s  wage,  but  spend- 
ing almost  nothing.” 


12 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


others  in  going  to  France  or  Germany,  and  may  never  become 
known  to  his  sindaco  as  an  emigrant.  A man  may  depart  to 
escape  military  service  1 or  to  flee  penal  justice.  He  may  be  in- 
duced by  agents  of  steamship  companies  not  recognized  by  the 
Italian  government  as  emigrant  carriers  to  leave  from  a French, 
German  or  English  port,  especially  since  a lower  rate  is  often 
charged  for  an  unprotected,  unregulated  service.  Since  1902  the 
passport  has  been  refused  to  persons  likely  to  be  debarred  from 
foreign  ports;  yet  unauthorized  carriers  often  succeed  in  enrolling 
them  by  promises  of  admission.  Since  1901  the  passport  has  been 
valid  for  three  years;  consequently  a man  may  emigrate  thrice  in 
three  years,  and  yet  be  recorded  only  once.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  paper  may  get  lost  and  is  easily  soiled  and  crumpled,  so  that 
application  for  a new  one  may  be  made;  the  worker  may  even 
procure  a second,  in  order  to  hold  one  in  reserve.2  Some  persons 
receive  the  nulla-osta  to  whom  the  provincial  authorities  later 
refuse  the  passport;  before  1904  they  would  have  been  regarded 
as  emigrants.3 

But  one  of  the  greatest  sources  of  error  is  the  general  unreli- 
ability of  the  operations  of  the  sindaci  who,  until  recently,  com- 
piled the  statistics.  The  Italian  commune,  in  many  regions,  has 
never  been  won  over  to  work  in  sympathy  with  national  meas- 
ures. A governmental  investigation,  held  in  1903,  showed  that 
“ in  many  communes  the  registers  of  the  nulla-osta  were  not 
regularly  kept  ” ; and  further,  that  “more  and  more  rarely  were 
the  communal  authorities  found  to  have  inquired  whether  per- 
sons had  emigrated  from  the  locality  without  providing  them- 
selves with  the  prescribed  documents;  so  that  the  number  of 
persons  recorded  as  only  known  through  public  report  to  have 
emigrated  had  in  late  years  fallen  almost  to  zero,  account  having 
been  kept  of  them  in  only  four  or  five  provinces.”  4 

1 Bodio  declared  this  to  be  the  chief  source  of  the  secret  emigration;  see  Di 
alcuni  indici  misuratori  del  movimento  economico  in  Italia  (Rome,  1891),  p.  6. 

2 Cf.  C.  C.  Dominioni,  “ L’immigrazione  italiana  nel  distretto  consolare  di 
Innsbruck  durante  l’anno  1906,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1907,  No.  5,  p.  28. 

3 Boll.  Emig.,  1907,  No.  14,  p.  5.  They  may,  however,  leave  without  the  pass- 
port, unless  to  go  to  America. 

4 Statistica  della  emigrazione  negli  anni  1902  e 1903,  p.  vi.  Cf.  also  a comment 


DEPARTURE 


13 


The  emigrants  who  had  departed  without  passports,  and  been 
subsequently  reported  to  the  sindaci  of  their  communes,  were 
as  follows: 1 


1887-1891  (yearly  average)  37,287 

1892-1896  “ “ 33,850 

1897-1901  “ “ 4i,745 

1902  17,290 

i9°3  28,278 


Are  the  figures  veracious  ? Is  it  sufficient  to  add  them  to  the 
totals  for  emigration  ? Some  evidence  can  be  had  to  show  that 
neither  the  early  nor  the  late  records  for  emigration  without  the 
passport  come  close  to  the  truth.  In  a report  of  the  Society  for 
the  Protection  of  Temporary  Emigrants  into  Europe  we  read: 2 

When  one  notes  that  in  1889  [when  94,823  emigrants  were  recorded  as 
having  gone  into  European  countries]  120,000  emigrant  laborers  passed 
through  the  stations  of  Basel  and  Schaffhausen  alone,  and  that  the  results 
of  investigations  repeated  for  a series  of  years  in  ten  other  centers  of  the 
Swiss  Confederation  show  that  thirty  out  of  one  hundred  emigrants  possessed 
no  passport  — the  only  means  of  official  record  — and  that  a great  number 
of  them  had  crossed  the  frontier  on  foot,  one  can  calculate  that  our  continen- 
tal emigration  in  1899  must  have  consisted  of  an  army  of  over  400,000  work- 
men, while  the  governmental  statistical  bureau  announced  only  177,031. 

More  explicit  are  the  findings  of  Dr.  Cosattini,  appointed  by  his 
government  to  study  emigration  from  the  Friuli.3  He  supple- 
mented the  official  figures  — which  are  “ far  below  the  truth  ” — 
by  personal  investigations  made  in  various  communes.  His  most 
striking  facts,  however,  have  reference  to  the  sales  of  railway 
tickets,  during  March,  April,  and  May,  for  frontier  destinations 
or  beyond.  A reduced  third-class  fare  for  these  destinations  is 
granted  to  groups  of  five  or  more  men  who  present  a request  from 
the  sindaco.  To  the  number  of  these  Cosattini  added  those  third- 
class  passengers  who,  not  departing  in  groups  of  at  least  five  per- 

by  G.  Prato,  “ L’emigrazione  temporanea  italiana  e l’opera  di  assistenza  di  Mons. 
Bonomelli,”  Riforma  Sociale,  June  15,  1901,  p.  552. 

1 Compiled  from  Statistica  dell’  emigrazione  (for  1902  and  1903),  p.  Lx. 

2 Consorzio  per  la  Tutela  dell’  Emigrazione  Temporanea  nell’  Europa  Conti- 
nentale,  Relazione  (Milan,  1904),  p.  6. 

3 G.  Cosattini,  “ L’emigrazione  temporanea  del  Friuli,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1904, 
No.  3. 


14 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


sons,  had  paid  the  full  fare.  Of  this  number,  some  certainly  were 
not  emigrants,  but  the  procedure  is  justified  because  the  depar- 
tures in  these  three  months  are  actually  four  times  as  numerous 
as  during  the  other  months;  and  only  the  temporary  emigration 
movement  could  explain  the  concentration.  He  then  made  the 
following  comparison : 

Bureau  of  Statistics 

Railway  figures  (“  Temporary  ” emigration) 


1898,  3 months . 

1899,  “ “ 

1900,  “ “ . 

1901,  “ “ 

1902,  2 “ 


65,023  1898,  12  months 50,598 

64,464  1899,  “ “ 55,536 

63,350  190°,  “ “ 43,306 

63,660  1901,  “ “ 49,448 

48,534  1902,  “ “ 45,125 


Allowing  for  the  reduced  emigration  during  nine  months  of  the 
year,  it  would  still  hold  that  almost  twice  as  many  persons  had 
emigrated  from  this  greatest  recruiting  ground  in  Italy  as  had 
been  officially  recorded.  It  would  be  hazardous,  however,  to  apply 
the  same  proportion  to  emigration  from  other  parts  of  Italy.1 

In  recent  years  the  consuls  have  reported  the  number  of  Italians 
to  whom,  during  residence  abroad,  they  have  granted  passports. 
Since  special  need  for  the  document  does  not  arise  commonly,  the 
20,000-30,000  emigrants  a year  so  added  to  the  figures  must 
include  only  a fraction  of  those  who  might  be  added. 

It  is  just  the  fact  that  emigration  today  is  free  or  only  slightly 
conditioned  by  law  that  makes  all  documentary  registration  diffi- 
cult. If  the  passport  had  notable  value  in  foreign  countries,  it 
would  be  a fair  measure  of  emigration.  But  it  is  only  a rough 
index.  Some  persons  receive  it  who  do  not  emigrate,  but  those 
who  do  not  receive  it  and  yet  emigrate,  and  those  who  use  it  more 
than  once  during  its  three-years’  validity,  contribute  to  a total 

1 In  the  reports  which  the  Italian  consuls  have  made  to  the  emigration  depart- 
ment there  are  numerous  references  to  the  large  number  of  Italians  working  without 
passports  in  the  countries  of  Europe.  Let  two  or  three  examples  suffice.  From 
Ticino,  it  was  reported  that  nine-tenths  of  the  temporary  immigrants  (a  conjecture) 
lacked  passports  for  Switzerland  (A.  Marazzi,  “ II  canton  Ticino  e la  immigrazione 
italiana,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1903,  No.  11,  p.  32).  Three-fourths  of  the  immigrants  into 
Germany  in  1904  were  said  to  be  without  a passport  (summary  of  a stud}-  by  Dr. 
Stuzke  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1904,  No.  14,  p.  40).  In  1912  it  was  said  that  a quarter 
of  the  numerous  furnace  workers  who  came  into  Bavaria  were  without  a passport 
(P.  Sandicchi,  “ I fornaciai  italiani  in  Baviera,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1912,  No.  12,  p.  8.) 


DEPARTURE 


IS 


far  higher  than  that  proclaimed.  No  one  can  say  how  far  the 
official  figures  for  emigration  into  Europe  have  fallen  below  the 
truth;  unquestionably  it  is  very  far.1 

Procuring  a passport,  sailing  from  a port  — Italian  or  other  — 
landing  in  America,  are  so  many  aspects  of  a single  movement. 
There  is,  perhaps,  a fair  presumption  that  the  third  of  these  makes 
the  safest  starting-point  for  a study  of  the  transoceanic  move- 
ment; it  is  a bird  in  hand  that  is  being  counted  when  American 
statistics  are  collected.2  They  follow: 

Annual  Average  Number  of  Immigrants 


Period  United  States  Brazil  Argentina 

1877-1881 8,217  16, 553 

1882-1886 23,084  12,600  39,088 

1887-1891 50.499  ' 68,847  57,089 

1892-1896 56,048  94,019  42,587 

1897-1901 87,249  41,090  49,513 

1902-1906 224,649  19,215  71,714 

1907-1911 206,622  16,450  87,598 

1912-1916 165,773  

Number  of  Immigrants 

Year 

1906  286,814  20,777  127,348 

1907  294,061  18,238  90,282 

1908  135,247  13,873  93,479 

1909  190,398  13,064  93,528 

1910  223,453  14,163  102,019 

1911  189,950  22,914  58,185 

1912  162,273  31.785  80,583 

1913  274,147  30,886  114,252 

1914  296,414  36,122 

I9J5 57,217  11,309 

1916 38,814  ....  .... 


1 Even  the  emigrants  have  asked  for  a reorganization  of  the  account-keeping;  so 
the  first  Convegno  degli  Emigranli  V allellinesi  in  Tirano  in  a vote  passed  January  12, 
1914  (C.  A.  Aschieri,  “ Relazione  sulle  statistiche  dell’  emigrazione  italiana  per 
l’estero  e per  l’interno,”  Annali  di  Statistica,  Serie  V,  viii,  p.  119).  In  1913  a 
commission  was  appointed  by  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  to  study  the  ques- 
tion of  the  passport  ( Bollettino  dell ’ Ufficio  del  Lavoro  (ediz.  quindicinale),  May  16, 
1913,  p.  94). 

2 For  the  United  States  I have  used  an  official  compilation,  “ Immigration  into 
the  United  States  from  1820  to  1903,”  published  in  the  Summary  of  Commerce  and 
Finance  for  June,  1903,  and  the  reports  of  the  Commissioner-General  of  Immigra- 


i6 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


Records  for  the  United  States  began  as  early  as  1820,  when  30 
Italians  arrived.  But  the  great  growth  has  been  very  recent.  In 
1887-1906,  2,092,821  were  admitted;  in  1907-16,  1,892,155.  By 
the  census  of  1850  the  Italians  in  the  United  States  (3679)  were 
slightly  in  excess  of  the  Swedes  (3559),  a minor  immigrant  people. 
At  each  successive  census,  through  that  of  1900,  the  Swedes  were 
decidedly  in  the  majority,  though  clearly  losing  ground  in  the 
last  decade  of  the  century.  Twice  after  1900  — first  when  the 
panic  of  1907  struck,  next  when  the  war  of  1914  broke  out  — 
the  Italian  immigration  to  the  United  States  fell  from  the  greatest 
height  it  had  till  then  attained  to  its  lowest  level  in  many  years.1 

Before  1875  German  and  Portuguese  immigrants  into  Brazil, 
especially  the  latter,  were  constantly  more  numerous  than  Italian 
immigrants.  The  Italians  first  exceeded  the  Germans  in  1875  and 
thereafter  never  failed  to  do  so.  They  first  exceeded  the  Portu- 
guese, their  chief  rivals,  in  1876  and  so  continued  in  nearly  every 
year  of  the  quarter  century  ending  in  1903.  Since  1820  they  have 
been  nearly  half  of  all  immigrants  into  Brazil,  having  numbered 
about  one  and  one-third  millions.  The  great  period  of  their  com- 
ing began  in  the  eighties  when  passage  was  commonly  supplied 
free  by  the  Brazilian  government.  But  within  a decade’s  time 
thereafter  a crisis  in  coffee-growing  occurred,  and  the  emigration 
fell  off  greatly.  In  1898  the  Brazilian  government  ceased  to 
collect  statistics  of  immigration,  resigning  that  function  to  the 
states,  which  have  inadequately  performed  their  task.2  In  1902, 
after  a notable  increase  in  new  arrivals  had  again  taken  place,  an 
Italian  decree  put  an  end  to  all  emigration  to  Brazil  of  a sub- 
sidized kind.  Once  more  the  movement  fell  off,  and  a decade 
elapsed  before  even  a modest  revival  appeared. 

tion.  (Before  1906  the  figures  relate  to  aliens  who  came  from  Italy;  since,  they  are 
for  immigrant  Italians.)  F or  Argentina  I have  used  the  Memoria  de  la  Direction  de 
Inmigracidn  and  the  municipal  yearbooks  of  Buenos  Aires.  The  Brazilian  statistics 
have  not  currently  appeared  in  any  one  publication,  but  have  been  many  times  offi- 
cially reproduced  (see  chapter  XV,  below). 

1 In  the  calendar  year  1914,  Italian  immigration  was  not  large.  The  ending  of 
the  fiscal  year  at  June  30  credited  to  1915  the  reduced  arrivals  of  July-December, 
1914. 

2 At  first  only  Sao  Paulo  and  Minas  Geraes  published  official  figures,  but  latterly 
annual  collections  have  emanated  from  Rio  de  Janeiro. 


DEPARTURE 


1 7 


Statistics  for  immigration  into  Argentina  were  first  collected  in 
1857.  In  1873,  26,878  Italians  arrived.  A larger  number  came  in 
1882,  when  a rise  began  which  culminated  in  the  year  1889  with 
88,647  immigrants.  Then  a severe  crisis  broke  upon  the  country, 
and  the  years  1890  and  1891  brought  only  39,122  and  15,511 
Italians  respectively.  After  some  fluctuation,  generally  on  a low 
level,  the  high  mark  of  1889  was  overpassed  in  1905  and  1906.  In 
the  entire  period  1857-1906,  r, 605, 432  Italian  immigrants  en- 
tered the  republic;  in  1907-14,  668,947.  Except  for  thirteen 
months  in  1911-12,  when  the  Italian  government  prohibited 
emigration  to  Argentina,  the  annual  movement  held  close  to 
100,000  a year  until  the  war  brought  it  emphatically  to  a stop. 
The  Argentine  statistics  are  based  on  information  contained  in  the 
passenger  lists  of  vessels  that  arrive  at  Buenos  Aires. 

The  other  American  countries  have  been  less  important  des- 
tinations. Uruguay  has  long  received  2000-5000  a year,  but  in 
1889  and  1890,  by  way  of  striking  exception,  T5,047  and  12,873. 
Canada  before  1900  received  a few  hundreds  per  year;  in  the 
next  decade,  4000-8000  a year;  subsequently  even  more.  Italian 
emigration  has  been  pushing  its  way  with  decision  into  all  parts  of 
America,  into  Mexico,  Cuba,  and  Central  America,  as  well  as 
Peru,  Bolivia,  and  Chile. 

The  statistics  we  have  been  considering  may  be  compared  with 
those  secured  by  the  Italian  Bureau  of  Statistics  on  the  basis  of 
nulla-osta,  or  of  passports  granted.  Before  1901  the  passport  was 
not  obligatory.  We  should  therefore  expect  many  persons  to  have 
emigrated  in  this  period  without  it,  especially  since  in  neither 
North  nor  South  America  does  it  possess  the  same  usefulness  as 
in  some  regions  of  Europe.  Since  1901  many  persons  must  have 
taken  out  the  passport,  which  is  free,  without  actually  emigrat- 
ing. The  following  table  would  seem  to  confirm  these  probabili- 
ties. The  figures  of  the  first  column  are  the  quinquennial  totals 
for  Italian  immigration  according  to  the  appropriate  country’s 
records.  The  figures  of  the  second  column  represent,  according  as 
they  are  preceded  by  (+)  or  ( — ),  the  amount  by  which  the 
American  figures  are  greater  or  less  than  those  of  the  Italian 
Bureau  of  Statistics: 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


18 


Period 

United  States 

Brazil 

Plata  countries 1 

1877-1881 

41,085 

+17,584 

82,766 

+ 23,880 

1882-1886 

115,419 

+15,583 

62,989 

+ 16,564 

233,739 

+ 75,!69 

1887-1891 

252,495 

+64,584 

344,235 

+ 73,460 

330,020 

+71,478 

1892-1896 

280,240 

+64,517 

470,094 

+ 171,939 

240,651 

+47,849 

1897-1901 

436,243 

+60,859 

205,45! 

-50,363 

264,317 

+44,023 

1902-1906 

1,123,243 

-112,539 

96,075 

-49,677 

372,999 

+34,i4i 

1907-1911 

1,033,109 

-130,508 

82,252 

-15,285 

451,524 

+60,639 

Only  nine-tenths  of  those  who  in  i 902-11  secured  passports  for 
the  United  States  actually  came  to  the  country.  The  American 
figures,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind,  refer  to  the  fiscal  year  which 
closes  in  June;  and  the  period  July-December,  1901,  included  in 
the  figures  does  not  compensate  for  the  period  July-December, 
191 1 , not  included  in  them.  Allowing  for  this,  there  would  still  be 
many  who  had  secured  passports,  but  not  departed.  Apparently 
numerous  emigrants  who,  on  applying  for  the  passport,  had 
named  Brazil  for  their  destination,  actually  went  to  Argentina; 
and  some,  also,  perhaps,  who  had  named  the  United  States.  A 
third  part  of  the  Argentine  immigration  is  probably  composed  of 
Italians  who,  after  having  lived  for  a time  in  Brazil,  shifted  their 
abode  to  Argentina.2  It  is  reasonable  to  conclude  that  the  Ameri- 
can figures  reflect  the  actual  emigration  more  truly  than  do  the 
Italian.3 

1 The  Bureau  of  Statistics  comprehends  in  this  term  Argentina,  Uruguay,  and 
Paraguay.  The  last  country  receives  a very  slight  immigration,  which  has  not 
been  included  in  the  American  figures  except  in  1 907-1 1. 

2 Apparently  no  records  have  been  published  which  measure  this  immigration 
fully.  In  the  first  nine  months  of  1914,  out  of  10,839  Italians  recorded  as  departing 
from  Santos,  1443  gave  Argentina  and  Uruguay  as  their  destination.  Boll.  Emig., 
1914,  No.  13,  p.  66. 

3 Some  interesting  data  of  another  sort  strengthen  this  probability  materially. 
In  the  table  which  follows,  I have  compared  for  five-year  periods  the  number  of  im- 
migrants actually  arrived  in  America  with  the  emigrants  who  actually  sailed  from 
Europe.  I have  not  given  the  absolute  figures,  but  have  stated,  for  the  sake  of 
comparison,  by  how  much  they  are  greater  or  less  than  the  figures  of  the  Bureau  of 
Statistics.  The  figures  for  sailings  are  those  of  the  third-class  passengers  departed 
from  Italian  ports  according  to  the  records  of  the  port  officials;  to  them  I have 
added  the  Italian  passengers  embarked  in  other  European  ports.  All  the  principal 
ports  are  included.  So,  likewise,  are  first  and  second  class  passengers,  but  these  are 
an  inconsiderable  number,  and  may  be  taken  to  compensate  for  emigrants  embarked 
in  ports  not  included.  The  ports  represented  differ  slightly  from  year  to  year.  All 


DEPARTURE 


19 


In  1901  a permanent  Commissioner  ship  of  Emigration  ( Com - 
missariato  dell'  Emigrazione ) was  established,  which  keeps  a 
record  of  all  emigrants  who  sail  from  the  Italian  ports  and  Havre. 
Its  statistics  for  number  are  based  on  the  taxes  paid  by  the 
steamship  companies  for  emigrants  carried.  How  do  these  sta- 
tistics compare  with  the  American  ? 

By  taking  the  emigrants  to  the  United  States,  month  by  month, 
and  grouping  them  to  correspond  to  our  fiscal  year,  we  get  a series 
of  figures  somewhat  comparable  with  those  of  our  Commissioner- 
General.  Considering  that  two  to  three  thousand  Italians  a year 
are  debarred  from  the  United  States,  that  some  Italians  sail  from 
non-Italian  ports  and  that  the  Italian  figures  include  a sprinkling 
of  non-Italian  emigrants,  and  finally  that  the  two  sets  of  figures 
do  not  refer  to  quite  the  same  moment  of  time  — a late  June, 
1905,  emigrant  being  a July  immigrant  in  the  fiscal  year  1906  — 
the  correspondence  is  so  close  as  to  enhance  our  confidence  in  both 
sets  of  figures.  The  following  table  is  for  sample  years  only: 

data  for  sailings  have  been  taken  from  recent  numbers  of  the  A nnuario  Statistico 
Italiano  or  of  the  Statistica  della  emigrazione.  The  American  figures  utilized  are 
those  for  Brazil,  Argentina,  Uruguay,  and  the  United,  States;  since  1907,  for  Para- 
guay also. 

I II 

The  American  figures  are  greater  or  less  than  The  figures  for  sailings  from  Europe  are 

the  corresponding  figures  of  the  Bureau  of  Sta-  greater  or  less  than  those  of  the  Bureau  of  Sta- 
tistics according  as  + or  — tistics  figures  for  transoceanic  emigration  accord- 

ing as  + or  — 


1877-1881 

+41,464  

+134,309 

1907-1011 

-85,154  

—264,651 

Plainly,  the  excess  of  the  American  figures  before  1901  rests  upon  fact.  Hence  here 
again,  for  the  overseas  emigration,  as  before  for  the  European,  the  figures  collected 
on  the  basis  of  nulla-osta  granted  appear  as  understatements.  Furthermore,  for 
1902-n  the  figures  for  sailings  confirm  the  conclusion  already  reached,  that  in  this 
period  more  persons  procured  the  passport  than  really  emigrated. 

The  closeness  of  the  figures  is  impressive.  That  it  is  not  greater  in  recent  years 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  sailings  from  Italy  include  a small  but  increasing  number 
of  third-class  foreign  passengers,  such  as  Greeks  and  Turks;  further  that  the  Italian 
emigration  to  other  countries  of  America,  especially  that  into  Canada,  has  become 
more  considerable;  finally  that  the  fiscal  year  of  the  United  States  ends  in  June. 


20 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


Period  Italian  figures  United  States  figures 

1904- 05 214,031  221,479 

1905- 06 287,523  273,120 

1907- 08 I3S.  709  128,503 

1908- 09 226,117  183,218 

I9I3-I4 225,516  283,738 

I9T4_IS 44>6i4  49.688 

28,455  33.665 


When,  however,  the  Commissionership  figures  for  Brazil  and 
Argentina  are  compared  with  the  corresponding  American  figures, 
an  appreciable  and  rising  excess  of  the  latter  is  disclosed.2  Indeed 
it  may  be  argued  on  specific  grounds  that  the  Italian  Commis- 
sioner’s figures  are  too  low  for  these  countries  and  perhaps  also  for 
the  United  States.  The  official  reports  declare  that  nearly  every 
ship  licensed  for  transoceanic  travel  carries  some  “ clandestine  ” 
emigrants,  and  the  unlicensed  ships  carry  many.  At  Milan,  in 
1913,  more  than  13,000  such  emigrants  were  held  up  before  they 
could  depart,  and  the  Udine  office  repatriated  360  who  tried  to  go 
to  Brazil  on  a free  passage;  and  more  than  300  law-breaking 
steamship  agents  were  prosecuted.3  Again,  no  tax  has  to  be  paid 
for  second-cabin  passengers  and  they  therefore  are  not  embraced 
in  the  statistics.  Yet  among  them  are  many  emigrants.  From 
the  port  of  Naples  alone  such  emigrants,  departing  thus  elusively, 
have  been  estimated  to  reach  20,000  a year.4  Finally,  the  very 
limitations  placed  by  the  Italian  government  upon  emigration  to 

1 The  American  figures  are  for  the  full  year,  the  Italian  figures  for  eleven  months 
only. 

2 A similar  excess  appears  when  they  are  compared  with  the  figures  of  the  Bureau 
of  Statistics. 

3 “ Notizie  sul  movimento  dell’  emigrazione  transoceanica  italiana  . . . nell’ 
anno  1913,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1914,  No.  3,  pp.  7 f.  There  is  another  reason  for  insuffi- 
ciency. The  Havre  statistics  recorded  by  the  Commissioner  have  been  only  of 
Italians  who  had  bought  their  tickets  in  Italy.  When  the  license  with  the  Com- 
pagnie  General  Transatlantique  was  renewed,  the  company  was  for  the  first  time 
called  upon  to  pay  the  emigrant  tax  on  Italians  not  enrolled  in  Italy  yet  sailing 
within  a month  after  leaving  Italy.  In  the  first  seven  months  of  19T4,  before  sail- 
ings were  stopped  by  the  war,  some  3000  emigrants  were  accordingly  listed,  who  in 
a previous  year  would  not  have  been  registered.  See  “ Notizie  statistiche  rias- 
suntive  sulla  emigrazione  italiana  transoceanica  negli  anni  1914  e 1915,”  Boll. 
Emig.,  r9i6,  No.  2,  p.  ri.  An  Italian  who  after  a season  in  Germany  (for  example) 
sails  from  Havre  is  still  not  included. 

4 Aschieri,  p.  120. 


DEPARTURE 


21 


Brazil  and  for  a time  to  Argentina  give  color  to  the  view  that 
many  emigrants  for  these  countries  escaped  record. 

A summary  statement  is  now  possible.  The  most  reliable 
statistics  of  transoceanic  emigration  from  Italy  are  those  com- 
piled in  American  ports.  The  figures  of  the  Italian  commissioner, 
the  most  widely  accepted  by  Italian  writers  (so  far  as  recent 
transatlantic  emigration  is  concerned),  err  somewhat  in  under- 
statement, certainly  as  regards  South  America.  The  figures  of  the 
Bureau  of  Statistics,  long  unduly  low,  have  in  the  present  century 
erred  in  excess,  many  persons  having  taken  out  the  passport  for 
emigration  only  to  change  their  minds  subsequently;  a situation 
probably  commoner  since  the  passport  became  free,  in  1901,  than 
before. 

An  Italian  cobbler  in  Pennsylvania  once  told  me  that  before 
coming  to  the  United  States  he  had  worked  for  several  years  in 
Brazil.  Is  such  inter-country  migration  frequent  ? The  passport, 
we  know,  is  valid  for  any  country  or  at  least  for  several.  The 
emigrant  recorded  as  having  gone  to  Switzerland  may  presently 
pass  into  Germany,  perhaps  move  to  and  fro.  Of  statistical  meas- 
urement of  such  movements  there  is  little;  but  of  testimony  to 
their  existence,  an  abundance.  We  read,  for  example,  that  com- 
mon laborers  and  miners,  brick  and  earth  workers,  unemployed  in 
Germany,  had  moved  from  Germany  into  France;  that  hotel 
workers  left  summer  employment  in  Switzerland  for  winter  em- 
ployment in  Nice;  that  laborers  at  Homecourt  had  come  from 
New  York,  Chicago  or  New  Orleans,  some  making  an  annual 
journey  to  the  United  States;  that  many  of  the  later  miners  in 
Algeria  had  first  worked  in  the  declining  lead  mines  of  Laurium, 
Greece;  that  Italians  who  went  to  the  Panama  Canal  from  France 
and  the  United  States  later  scattered  to  Chile,  Peru,  Ecuador,  and 
northern  Brazil;  that  of  less  than  9000  Italians  who  entered  San- 
tos in  the  first  nine  months  of  1914,  2800  came  from  Argentina  and 
Uruguay;  finally,  that  five  or  ten  thousand  Italian  immigrants  a 
year,  and  even  more,  have  in  recent  years  come  into  the  United 
States  from  other  countries  of  the  world  than  Italy.1 

1 The  reports  of  the  Commissioner-General  of  Immigration  give  the  figures  by- 
countries.  For  the  previous  items  see  Soziale  Praxis,  September  25,  1913,  p.  1451, 


22 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


These  are  scattered  examples  only.  Why,  indeed,  should  not 
the  Italian  move  so,  from  country  to  country  ? He  is  primarily  a 
laborer.  The  possibility  of  earning  a very  little  more  than  the 
grudging  modicum  bid  by  his  own  country  lowers  for  him  those 
bars  of  language,  nationality,  and  social  life  which  so  effectually 
maintain  the  distinctness  of  communities  economically  advanced. 
During  the  building  of  the  Simplon  tunnel,  Pasquale  Villari  asked 
some  Italians  there  employed  whether  they  loved  their  country. 
He  says,  “ They  answered  me,  smiling,  as  if  I had  spoken  of  some 
stranger,  ‘ Italy  is  for  us  whoever  gives  us  our  bread.’  ” 1 

note  (cf.  December  28,  1911,  p.  398,  and  May  30,  1912,  p.  1114);  A.  Bernardy, 
“ Alcuni  aspetti  della  nostra  emigrazione  femminile  nel  distretto  consolare  di  Basi- 
lea,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1912,  No.  6,  p.  34;  G.  Reynaud,  “ La  colonie  italienne  d'Home- 
court,”  La  Musee  Sociale,  June,  1910,  pp.  207,  212;  E.  Bonelli,  “II  distretto 
consolare  del  Pireo  e la  immigrazione  italiana,”  Emig.  e Col.,  1905,  im,  p.  268;  A. 
Lomonoco,  “ II  canale  di  Panama  e il  lavoro  italiano,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1909,  No.  2, 
pp.  138  ff.;  note  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1914,  No.  13,  p.  66. 

1 “ L’emigrazione  e le  sue  conseguenze  in  Italia,”  Nuova  Anlologia,  January  1, 
1907,  P-  53- 


CHAPTER  II 


RETURN.  CIRCUMSTANCES  OF  EMIGRATION 

Even  in  its  beginnings,  Italian  emigration  had  a characteristic 
which  marked  it  off  from  most  modern  migrations.  It  was  often 
impermanent.  The  Italian  who  went  forth  was  unwilling  to  fix 
his  abode  in  a foreign  country.  When  Carpi  asked  the  prefects  of 
the  provinces  concerning  these  repatriations,  they  generally  told 
him  that  lasting  absence  was  not  usual;  but  his  persistent  efforts 
to  learn  from  them  how  many  returned  were  unavailing.1  Recog- 
nizing the  moment  of  the  question,  Italy,  in  a backward  glance  — 
the  basis  is  none  too  clear  — divided  the  emigrants  of  1869-71 
into  “permanent”  and  “temporary”;  the  exact  figures  have 
been  given  above.2  In  the  first  year  of  its  concern  with  emigra- 
tion (1876),  and  thereafter  continuously  through  1903,  the  Bureau 
of  Statistics  listed  every  emigrant  either  as  “ permanent  ” or 
“ temporary  ” or  under  an  equivalent  phrase.  Here,  in  con- 
densed form,  are  the  results: 

Annual  Average  Number  of  Emigrants 


Period  Temporary  Permanent 

1876-1880 81,170  27,627 

1881-1885 91,971  62,166 

1886-1890 97,392  125,384 

1891-1895 120,077  132,432 

1896-1900 158,364  152,070 

Number  of  Emigrants 

Year  Temporary  Permanent 

1899  177,031  131,308 

1900  199,031  153,209 

1901  281,668  251,577 

1902  286,292  245,217 

1903  277,135  230,841 


Apparently  in  1869-71  the  temporary  emigration  was  four  to 
six  times  as  great  as  the  permanent.  Between  1876  and  1885  the 

* See  the  revised  Carpi  table  above. 


1 Carpi,  i,  pp.  10,  32  S. 


23 


24 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


excess  declined  fast,  and  in  1887  the  temporary  emigration  fell 
below  the  permanent.  There  it  generally  remained  until  1898, 
when  it  again  surpassed  the  permanent.  Throughout  the  period, 
the  number  of  temporary  emigrants  corresponds  rather  closely 
with  the  number  emigrating  to  countries  of  Europe,  hence  of  course 
the  number  of  permanent  emigrants  corresponds  as  closely  with 
the  number  of  transoceanic  emigrants.  Do  the  figures  corre- 
spond as  closely  with  the  truth  ? 

Few  emigration  statistics  have  had  so  wide  a currency  as  these. 
They  have  passed  into  the  general  literature  on  emigration  ap- 
parently without  a challenge.1  Yet  is  it  certain  that  the  question 
of  the  sindaco,  whether  the  emigrant  was  leaving  for  a few 
months  only  or  permanently,  was  correctly  answered  ? 

The  Italian  field  laborer,  so  unskilled  that  he  can  be  put  only  to 
pick  and  shovel  work  in  another  country,  whose  entire  property 
can  often  be  carried  in  a bundle,  who  feels  the  scantiness  of  his 
earnings  at  home  and  hears  of  greater  possible  wages  elsewhere, 
must  often  depart  without  mature  or  definite  planning.  He  is 
young  and  ready  for  experiment,  and  he  feels  that  other  lands  can- 
not treat  him  more  harshly  than  his  own.  He  clings  to  Italy,  yes, 
but  — Italy  is  whatever  land  will  give  him  his  bread.  This  man 
must  often  not  know  what  answer  to  give  to  the  sindaco.2  The 
latter,  unless  he  be  an  exceptional  officer,  will  not  take  much 
trouble  even  about  ascertaining  the  real  state  of  the  man’s  mind. 
And  even  if  an  answer  is  given,  and  is  clear,  still  the  emigrant, 
when  he  reaches  another  land,  may  change  his  decision.  Where 
most  of  the  man’s  life  is  still  before  him,  he  often  cannot,  even  if 
he  would,  answer  the  momentous  question  of  the  sindaco. 

But  the  most  eloquent  argument  today  against  these  statistics 
proceeds  from  the  action  of  the  statistical  officials  themselves. 

1 So,  e.g.,  R.  Mayo-Smith,  Emigration  and  Immigration  (New  York,  1890),  p.  19. 
Mayo-Smith  even  identifies  the  temporary  emigration  with  that  to  neighboring 
countries  and  the  permanent  with  that  to  countries  outside  of  Europe.  Cf.  also  R. 
Gonnard,  L’ Emigration  europeenne  au  XIX‘  sie.de  (Paris,  1906),  p.  187,  who  accepts 
the  figures  implicitly. 

2 The  Italian  consuls  in  France  agreed  in  inferring  that  the  Italian  emigrants  do 
not  usually  know,  when  they  leave  Italy,  that  their  absence  will  be  permanent. 
Count  Tomielli,  “ La  Francia  e l’emigrazione  italiana,”  Emig.  e Col.,  1903,  i1,  p.  63. 


RETURN.  CIRCUMSTANCES  OF  EMIGRATION 


25 


After  thirty  years  of  record  and  tabulation,  in  1903,  they  brought 
the  series  to  an  end  — an  admitted  failure.  “ These  figures,”  the 
Parliamentary  Commission  of  Vigilance  upon  the  Emigration 
Funds  reported  to  the  Chamber,  “ . . . cannot  give  an  exact 
account  of  the  phenomenon.”  1 The  governmental  investigation 
already  alluded  to  had  found  the  task  of  learning  the  future  plans 
of  emigrants  “ so  difficult  that  in  most  cases  it  was  neglected,  and 
the  officers  made  the  classification  by  conjecture.”  2 Inspection 
of  the  registries  of  passports  showed  that  the  distinction  had  been 
made  “upon  uncertain  and  arbitrary  grounds.  In  some  circon- 
dari  the  entire  transoceanic  emigration  had  been  considered  per- 
manent in  the  absence  of  information  as  to  opposite  intentions. 
In  others,  analogous  groups  had  been  assigned  to  the  periodic 
emigration,  because  it  had  been  found  that  in  preceding  years 
many  persons  who  had  gone  to  America  had  returned  after  a 
brief  stay.”  3 

The  figures,  however,  are  not  wholly  misleading.  The  perma- 
nent emigration  can,  for  a long  period  of  years,  be  measured  in 
another  and  more  reliable  way,  and  the  results  of  the  two  methods 
compared.  If  one  deducts  from  the  excess  of  births  over  deaths  in 
the  intercensal  period  1882-1901  the  actual  increase  in  the  popu- 
lation of  Italy  recorded  by  the  census  of  1901,  the  remainder  will 
represent  the  true  net  loss  by  emigration.  The  census  of  1882 
was  taken  on  the  first  of  January;  that  of  1901  on  the  tenth  of 
February.  I have  accordingly  estimated  the  excess  of  births  over 
deaths  January  i-February  10,  1901,  as  one-ninth  of  the  year’s 
total.  Similarly  for  the  permanent  emigration  of  the  Bureau  of 
Statistics  in  January  i-February  10,  1901,  I have  estimated  one- 
ninth  of  the  total  emigration  for  the  year.  This  seems  fair,  for  the 
temporary  emigrants  of  these  forty  days  were,  like  the  permanent, 
not  included  in  the  census;  nay,  it  is  probably  a conservative 
overstatement,  for  emigration  at  this  period  of  the  year  is  slight. 
My  calculation  then  reads  somewhat  as  follows: 

1 “ Relazione  della  commissione  parlamentare  di  vigilanza  sul  fondo  per  l’emi- 
grazione,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1904,  No.  n,  p.  n. 

2 G.  Russo,  “ Emigrazione  dell’  Europa  e immigrazione  in  America  e in  Austral- 
asia,” Boll.  Emig.,  1907,  No.  14,  p.  6. 

3 Loc.  cit. 


26 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


Excess  of  births  over  deaths  in  the  intercensal  period  January  i, 

1882  to  February  10,  1901 6,206,059 

Excess  census  1901  over  census  1882 4,015,625 

Loss  by  emigration,  — i.e.,  net  or  permanent  emigration 2,190,434 

“ Permanent  ” emigration  of  Bureau  of  Statistics  for  the  same  period  2,390,145 

Excess  of  this  over  calculated  permanent  emigration 200,021 

Percentage  of  error  of  Bureau  of  Statistics 9.13 


In  effect,  10,000  persons  a year  on  the  average,  who  have  been 
recorded  as  permanent  emigrants,  seem  actually  to  have  returned 
to  Italy.  Or,  otherwise  put,  one  person  in  eleven  has  been  wrongly 
classified  as  permanent.  Considering  the  difficulties  inevitable  in 
preparing  the  figures  of  the  Bureau  of  Statistics,  it  seems  surpris- 
ing that  the  error  is  not  greater.  But  the  effective  error  by  no 
means  measures  the  actual.  Since,  so  far  as  applicants  for  pass- 
ports are  concerned,  the  temporary  and  permanent  emigrants 
have  apparently  long  been  nearly  equal  in  number,  there  may 
have  been  a great  compensating  misrecord  of  permanent  and 
temporary  emigrants.  It  would  be  particularly  hazardous  to 
assume  that  the  percentage  of  error  which  I have  calculated  can 
be  applied  to  the  statistics  of  any  single  year.  What  is  most  of  all 
to  be  said  to  the  credit  of  these  figures  is  that,  while  the  temporary 
emigration  changes  slightly  from  year  to  year,  the  permanent 
reveals  just  such  violent  fluctuations  as  the  transoceanic  emigra- 
tion shows. 

The  computed  figure  2,190,434  can  be  taken  to  measure  with 
some  closeness  the  net  or  permanent  emigration  from  Italy  in  the 
period  considered.  It  includes  a few  Italians,  to  be  sure,  who  will 
still  return  to  Italy.  But  it  gives  absolutely  no  clew  to  the  extent 
of  the  temporary  emigration.  The  total  recorded  emigration  for 
the  same  period  was  4,638,658.  The  difference  between  the  two 
numbers,  2,448,224,  cannot  be  taken  to  represent  the  temporary 
emigration,  because,  as  has  been  shown,  the  totals  of  the  Bureau 
of  Statistics  for  emigration  are,  to  an  indefinite  extent,  under- 
statements. 

With  the  twentieth  century,  still  another  official  basis  has  been 
provided  for  distinguishing  permanent  and  temporary  emigra- 
tion: the  communal  registry  of  population.  From  the  local  reg- 
istry is  stricken  the  name  of  any  emigrant  who  departs  for  an 


RETURN.  CIRCUMSTANCES  OF  EMIGRATION 


2 7 


indefinite  term  and  gives  up  his  residence.  In  the  years  1901-11, 
1,984,154  names  were  cancelled.  In  the  same  years,  the  names 
of  724,985  Italians  were  added  to  the  fists  who  had  given  up 
their  foreign  residence  and  returned.  The  difference,  1,259,169, 
though  it  includes  some  Italians  who  were  yet  to  return  home, 
represents  chiefly  those  who  had  permanently  disappeared,  and  is 
19  per  cent  of  the  6,560,535  who  had  received  passports  in  the 
same  period.1 

Yet  these  figures  in  turn  are  open  to  criticism.  They  afford  us 
no  indication  of  the  number  of  those  who  leave  without  the  pass- 
port or  of  those  who,  receiving  the  passport,  decide  to  stay  at 
home.  And,  as  the  Italian  Commissioner  wrote  of  them  some 
years  ago,  “ they  have  a very  dubious  value,  for  it  is  common 
knowledge  what  a want  of  accuracy  and  precision  in  keeping  the 
population  records  exists  in  a large  part  of  the  communes  of  the 
kingdom.”  2 

Even  if  these  figures  and  the  classification  previously  considered 
were  trustworthy,  they  would  help  us  little  in  treating  the  return 
movement  for  particular  countries  of  Europe,  since  no  information 
has  been  published  for  countries.  For  the  method  which  I pro- 
pose to  follow  to  determine  this  migration,  accuracy  cannot  be 
claimed,  but  the  results,  I believe,  sufficiently  reflect  the  broad 
facts. 

The  first  step  consists  in  securing  the  census  figures  for  Italians 
living  in  the  countries  of  Europe  in  the  period  1880-191 1 .3  Fortu- 
nately, the  official  counts  were  in  nearly  every  case  taken  in 
December,  the  very  month  when  fewest  temporary  emigrants 
were  living  abroad.  The  second  step  consists  simply  in  subtract- 

1 The  annual  figures  for  these  computations  appear  in  Boll.  Emig.  and  Siatistica 
della  emigrazione. 

2 L.  Rossi,  “ Relazione  sui  servizi  dell’  emigrazione  per  l’anno  1909-1910,” 
Boll.  Emig.,  1910,  No.  18,  p.  25. 

3 For  1880-1901,  the  figures  have  been  reproduced  in  the  “ Terza  relazione 
annuale  del  commissariato  generale,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1904,  No.  7,  pp.  210  fi. ; in  the 
case  of  a few  unimportant  countries,  only  consular  estimates  were  available.  For 
1901-n,  I have  consulted  the  later  censuses  of  Austria,  Germany,  France,  and 
Switzerland  and  a study,  “ Saggio  di  una  statistica  della  popolazione  italiana  all’ 
estero,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1912,  No.  1,  p.  6. 


28 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


ing  each  census  figure  from  its  successor  in  the  next  decade.  This 
gives  the  increase  in  the  Italian  permanent  population.  The 
third  step  consists  in  deducting  this  figure  from  the  Italian  immi- 
gration into  the  country  during  the  decade,  the  difference  being 
then  the  return  migration  into  Italy.  The  last  figure  it  is  con- 
venient to  state  as  a percentage.  In  the  following  table  the  years 
represent  census  dates  as  well  as  the  comprehending  years  of  the 
emigration  period  under  consideration.  The  absolute  figures  are 
those  of  temporary  or  returned  emigrants,  and  the  percentages 
are  those  of  returned  emigrants  in  total  emigrants  of  the  period. 


Period 

Total  returned 

Per  cent  returned 

Total,  Europe 

1881-1891 

858,978 

9I-3 

France 

1881-1891 

294,992 

84.2 

Germany 

1880-1890 

75,972 

90.1 

Switzerland 

50,734 

99-3 

Austria-Hungary 

1880-1890 

354,520 

94-9 

Total,  Europe 

1891-1901 

1,243,305 

85-9 

France 

I89I-T896 

116,944 

96.4 

Germany 

1890-1900 

176,580 

76.4 

Switzerland 

1888-1900 

143,754 

65.6 

Austria 

1890-1900 

270,078 

58.3 

Hungary 

1890^900 

123,093 

97-4 

Total,  Europe 

1901-1911 

2,265,496 

90.2 

France 

1901-1911 

488,846 

85-3 

Germany 

1900-1910 

556,634 

94.1 

Switzerland 

1900-1910 

263,414 

75-7 

Austria 

1900-1910 

396,835 

96.1 

Qualifications  of  this  table  at  once  suggest  themselves.  One  is 
that  the  figures  for  returned  emigrants  are  indeed  not  such,  but 
represent  rather  emigrants  disappeared  from  the  country  of  des- 
tination in  intercensal  years.  Some  have  died,  not  many  probably 
in  the  older  periods  nor  a large  proportion  in  the  recent  periods  of 
increased  immigration,  for  the  emigrants  are  in  the  best  years  of 
life.  Some  have  migrated  elsewhere,  but  the  currents,  we  can 
assume,  are  somewhat  compensatory;  and,  even  where  they  are 
not,  the  difference  would  immaterially  affect  the  number  of 
permanent  residents,  which  is  at  all  events  small.  Some  have 
migrated  to  America.  All  the  rest  have  returned  to  Italy.  These 


RETURN.  CIRCUMSTANCES  OF  EMIGRATION 


29 


are  the  true  temporary  emigrants,  and  undoubtedly  they  are  a 
great  majority  of  those  included  in  our  figures.  Unavoidably,  in 
our  calculation  we  have  used  the  emigration  figures  of  the  Bureau 
of  Statistics,  and  these  we  have  found  too  low.  Hence  it  may  be 
assumed  that  the  backflow  is  indefinitely  greater  than  the  high 
percentages  computed.  That  it  is  not  less  can  be  stated  with 
assurance.1 

When  we  consider  the  return  movement  of  Italians  from  the 
New  World,  we  have  little  choice  of  figures.  Only  since  1908  has 
the  United  States  kept  a record  of  departing  immigrants.  The 
South  American  countries  have  likewise  kept  records,  but  have 
not  classified  their  emigrants  by  nationality.  Before  1904,  we 
have  seen,  the  Italians  procuring  passports  for  emigration  were 
classified  as  temporary  or  permanent  emigrants.  But  the  dis- 
tinction has  even  less  value  for  the  emigration  into  America  than 
for  that  into  Europe,  primarily  because  emigration  overseas  is  a 
much  more  momentous  undertaking.  Even  if  the  emigrant  has 
made  up  his  mind  regarding  the  term  of  his  absence,  his  sojourn 
abroad  is  contingent  upon  so  many  speculative  conditions  that 
he  may  later  change  his  mind.  It  can  hardly  be  reckoned  a loss 
that  the  Bureau  of  Statistics  has  in  only  a few  instances  published 
the  figures  of  temporary  and  permanent  emigration  by  countries. 

Our  chief  source  of  statistics  for  the  return  migration  into  Italy 
is  the  record  of  passengers  disembarked  in  Italian  ports.  For  the 
reflux  over  the  land  frontier,  frequently  even  when  that  has  orig- 
inated in  America,  we  have  no  measure.  The  figures  of  the  fol- 
lowing table  before  1901  were  collected  by  the  Ministry  of  the 
Marine,  and  since  that  year  by  the  emigration  inspectors,  upon 

1 Still  other  qualifications  of  the  table  deserve  mention.  The  German  and  Aus- 
trian censuses  give  the  de  facto  population;  the  French  and  Swiss,  the  resident  pop- 
ulation. But  these  differences  do  not  affect  comparisons  made  within  one  country. 
The  emigrants  of  one  year  do  not  necessarily  return  in  the  same  year,  but  they  usu- 
ally do  so.  Hence  this  is,  for  decennial  periods  certainly,  an  inconsiderable  factor. 
The  figures  given  for  the  total  return  from  Europe  are  the  least  reliable;  for,  while 
the  factor  of  emigration  covers  the  ten  years  indicated,  the  census  figures  only 
approximately  cover  the  same  ten  years;  and  some  consular  estimates  of  popula- 
tion are  included.  Even  here,  however,  a correction,  were  it  possible,  would  only 
slightly  affect  the  units  of  our  percentages. 


30 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


the  basis  of  passenger  lists.1  They  are  for  third-class  passengers 
only,  and  before  1902  include  a negligible  sprinkling  of  foreigners. 
Many  Italians  go  from  the  United  States  to  Havre.  When  they 
proceed  thence  by  rail  to  Italy,  they  are  included  (or  have  been 
since  1902)  in  the  statistics.  The  last  column  includes  more  than 
emigrants  from  the  specified  countries;  it  would  be  higher  by 
about  15,000  a year,  in  recent  years,  if  immigrants  returning  by 
first-class  and  second-class  passage  were  included.2 

Annual  Average  Number  of  Emigrants  Returned 


Period 

From  the 
United  States 

From  Brazil 

From  the  Plata 
countries 

Total 

1887-1891 

5>37i 

1,829 

29,815 

37,097 

1892-1896 

20,075 

11,444 

22,555 

54,622 

1897-1901 

26,992 

17,122 

27,061 

72,631 

1902-1906 

88,012 

23,066 

26,013 

134,457 

1906-1911 

149.979 

14,168 

46,733 

211,862 

Number  of 

Emigrants  Returned 

Year 

From  the 
United  States 

From  Brazil 

From  the  Plata 
coutnries 

Total 

1906 

109,258 

17,236 

30,393 

157,987 

I9°7 

176,727 

20,721 

49,867 

248,428 

1908 

240,877 

14,675 

44,196 

300,834 

I9°9 

73,806 

14,071 

45,232 

134,210 

1910 

104,459 

10,808 

42,888 

158,902 

I9II 

154,027 

10,568 

51,483 

216,820 

1912 

129,649 

9,031 

43,593 

182,990 

I9X3 

122,589 

12,742 

5r,i5i 

188,978 

I9J4 

156,274 

12,865 

48,413 

219,178 

1915 

104,265 

11,489 

51,322 

167,925 

Is  the  situation  quite  as  extraordinary  as  these  figures  pro- 
claim ? The  only  test  that  can  be  applied  to  them  is  that  of 
comparison  with  those  of  the  United  States.  In  1908  our  Com- 
missioner-General began  to  keep  tally  of  all  outgoing  aliens.  Be- 
tween July,  1908,  and  July,  1916,  nine  fiscal  years,  the  departing 
Italians  were  1,215,996,  or  130,070  more  than  the  number  that 
(according  to  the  Italian  statistics)  arrived  in  Italy,  from  the 
United  States,  in  the  eight  calendar  years  1908-15.  Quite  apart, 
however,  from  the  longer  period  of  time  covered  in  the  American 
figures  cited,  the  two  series  are  not  exactly  comparable.  In  the 

1 Slatistica  della  emigrazione,  1900,  and  following  years,  and  Russo,  p.  36.  The 
Annuario  Statistico  for  1904,  p.  117,  gives  some  earlier  figures. 

2 See  the  table  in  Statistica  della  emigrazione  for  1910  and  1911,  p.  xxii. 


RETURN.  CIRCUMSTANCES  OF  EMIGRATION 


31 


American  figures  are  included  Italians  departing  for  any  country, 
even  transient  Italians  bound  for  Canada  — numbering  in  some 
years  10,000  or  12,000.  And  the  Italian  figures,  in  turn,  embrace 
American-born  children  who,  in  American  law,  are  American 
citizens.1  In  the  circumstances,  while  it  cannot  be  said  that  the 
Italian  figures  are  confirmed  by  the  American,  nothing  suggests 
that  the  two  series  are  irreconcilable.2 

What  we  should  most  like  to  know  regarding  the  return  move- 
ment is,  What  part  of  those  who  emigrate  return  ? Of  course  our 
answer  can  only  be  historical  and  approximate.  In  the  table 
which  follows  I have  stated  in  percentages  of  total  immigrants  for 
five-year  periods  the  number  of  returned  emigrants  for  the  same 
periods.  For  the  Italian  immigration  into  the  several  countries 
I have  used  the  American  figures.  For  the  transoceanic  total  I 
have  used,  on  the  one  hand,  the  sum  of  the  American  figures  for 
the  United  States,  Brazil,  Argentina,  and  Uruguay,  and,  on  the 
other,  the  total  returned  emigrants  from  whatever  transoceanic 
country.  How  impressive  are  alike  the  volume  and  the  fluctua- 
tions of  this  movement ! 3 

1 What  weight  should  be  given  to  this  factor  (which  has  been  courteously  brought 
to  my  attention  by  our  Commissioner-General)  it  is  difficult  to  say.  The  only 
statistical  evidence  which  I have  been  able  to  secure  suggests  that  it  should  have 
slight  weight.  From  Professor  Beneduce’s  detailed  study  of  the  immigrants  re- 
turned from  the  United  States  in  1905,  it  appears  that  there  were  in  that  year  only 
1763  children  under  twelve  months  of  age  and  4867  children  between  one  and  fifteen 
years,  many  of  whom  of  course  had  been  born  in  Italy.  (A.  Beneduce,  “ Saggio  di 
statistica  dei  rimpatriati  dalle  Americhe,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1911,  No.  n,  Table  VIII.) 

2 One  lacuna  of  the  American  statistics  is  regrettable.  The  figures  tell  how  many 
Italians  leave  the  United  States  for  all  countries,  how  many  go  back  to  Italy  to  stay 
a year  or  more,  and  how  many  go  back  to  Italy  after  a stay  in  the  United  States  of 
less  than  a year.  On  the  other  hand,  though  they  tell  how  many  departing  aliens 
plan  to  return  to  the  United  States  in  less  than  a year,  they  do  not  specify  these 
departures  by  nationality  nor  even  by  country  of  destination. 

An  expected  sojourn  of  a year  or  more  in  the  United  States  constitutes  a “ per- 
manent ” residence.  Although  not  strictly  a revival  of  the  Italian  statistical  dis- 
tinction of  “ permanent  ” and  “ temporary,”  this  attempt  at  classification  is  open 
to  objections  similar  to  those  which  led  to  the  discontinuance  of  the  Italian  series. 

3 For  the  interest  of  comparison,  the  figures  of  the  Italian  Commissioner  may 
be  used  as  a base : 


1902-06 

I907-II 

1912-15 

United  States 

38.77 

76.63 

76.42 

Brazil 

Argentina  and  Uruguay 

J 69.08 

123.92 

67-55 

81.59 

102.12 

Total 

43-97 

74-7S 

82.32 

32 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


Percentage  of  Returned  Immigrants 


1887-gi 

1892-96 

1897-1901 

1902-06 

I 90 7- 1 1 

I9I2-I5 

United  States 

. 10.63 

42.97 

3093 

37-90 

72.60 

64.90 

Brazil 

• 2.65 

12.28 

42.83 

| 60.70 

86.12 

Argentina  and  Uruguay 

• 45-23 

46.87 

51-19 

5i-75 

Total 

. 20.01 

27.46 

40.33 

41.87 

68.23 

Two  striking  tendencies  of  the  emigration  movement  from  Italy 
find  expression  in  these  figures.  One  is  that  it  is  very  sensitive  to 
changes,  especially  of  an  economic  sort,  in  the  conditions  of  the 
countries  to  which  it  moves.  Many  years  ago,  by  authority  of  the 
Bureau  of  Statistics,  the  sindaci  asked  applicants  for  passports 
whether  they  were  leaving  Italy  because  driven  from  it  by  the 
hard  conditions  of  fife  there  or  because  they  were  seeking  better 
circumstances  in  other  lands.  These  puzzling  questions  find  a 
partial  answer  in  our  table.  Emigration  is  checked  whenever  the 
chance  of  finding  better  circumstances  elsewhere  appears  to  be  in- 
secure; and  repatriation  is  increased.  Thus,  in  1892-96,  for  every 
five  Italians  who  entered  the  United  States,  two  returned  to  Italy 
— eloquent  evidence  of  the  conditions  then  prevailing;  the  pro- 
portion was  four  times  as  great  as  that  of  the  previous  quinquen- 
nium. The  proportion  of  returned  emigrants,  which  had  again 
fallen  off  in  1897-1901,  rose  substantially  in  1902-06,  and  quite 
prodigiously  in  the  next  decade.1  The  low  percentage  of  Brazil  in 
1887-96  reflects  the  active  period  of  colonization;  very  different 
is  the  tale  subsequently  told,  due  to  the  accumulated  disorders  of 
the  coffee  fazendas,  and  particularly  to  the  diminished  immigra- 
tion of  the  next  years.  The  countries  of  the  Plata  have  long  been 
regurgitating  about  half  their  immigrants.  Their  unprecedented 
rate  in  the  recent  years  turns  partly  upon  the  Italo-Argentine 
dispute  already  referred  to,  and  partly  on  the  prolonged  economic 
disturbance  that  set  in  in  Argentina  after  the  outbreak  of  the 
European  war. 

Never  has  there  been  so  embracing  and  prompt  a return  of 
emigrants  as  that  determined  by  the  war.  With  fearful  swiftness 

1 According  to  the  figures  of  the  Italian  Commissioner  {Boll.  Emig.,  1908,  No.  6, 
pp.  4,  6)  only  5033  persons  departed  for  the  United  States  in  December,  1907, 
while  52,532  returned  — so  swiftly  did  the  panic  spread. 


RETURN.  CIRCUMSTANCES  OF  EMIGRATION 


33 


the  routine  of  existence  in  the  countries  of  Europe  was  undone. 
What  with  sudden  stoppage  of  employment  and  the  collapse  of 
telegraph  and  postal  service,  the  Italians  rushed  hither  and  thither 
like  frantic  caged  creatures.  When  German  troops  entered  Lux- 
emburg on  the  first  day  of  August,  thousands  of  Italians  were 
there.  Only  with  difficulty,  it  is  said,  did  those  in  Germany 
escape  being  enrolled  for  the  work  of  military  preparation.  From 
France  many  were  expelled  as  subjects  of  a member  of  the  Triple 
Alliance.  Everywhere  workmen  hastened  away,  leaving  bag- 
gage behind  them  and  wages  uncollected.  Into  Switzerland  they 
poured,  seeking  the  great  highways  through  the  Alps.  In  the 
first  three  days  of  August,  twenty  thousand  passed  through 
Basel.  From  Austria  they  hurried  through  Bregenz.1  The 
throng  seemed  as  endless  as  it  was  tempestuous.  By  mid-Sep- 
tember the  army  of  returned  workers  — for  only  those  aged 
fifteen  or  over  appear  in  the  special  statistics  collected  — num- 
bered 470, 866. 2 How  numerous  those  were  who,  desiring  to  re- 
turn, found  all  channels  blocked  — for  example,  in  Roumania  3 
— no  one  can  say.  Nearly  all  those  who  returned  by  the  middle  of 
September  came  overland.  Whatever  their  speculation  as  to 
further  chances  of  employment,  they  must  chiefly  have  been 
inspired  to  their  decision  by  the  nearness  of  war,  the  terror  it  in- 
stilled, and  the  sense  of  being  indefinitely  cast  off  from  the  Italy 
of  family  and  friends.  The  shock  to  business  was  universal,  how- 

1 Opera  di  Assistenza  agli  Operai  Italiani  Emigrati  in  Europa,  Relazione  del  lavoro 
compiuto  dalV  Opera  in  occasione  del  rimpatrio  (Agosto-N ovembre,  1914),  compilata 
a cura  di  G.  Gallavresi,  Milan,  1914  (a  vivid  and  explicit  account);  F.  Calimani, 
“ I profughi  di  guerra  italiani  rimpatriati  attraverso  alia  Svizzera.”  Boll.  Emig., 
1916,  No.  3,  pp.  5-35;  “ L’assistenza  agli  italiani  profughi  dai  paesi  belligeranti 
(Informazioni  del  commissariato  dell’  emigrazione),”  ibid.,  pp.  36-45. 

2 Of  these  62,787  were  women.  By  September  15,  280,612  were  still  unemployed. 
The  official  figure  admittedly  does  not  include  quite  all  who  had  returned  even  by 
September  15.  Figures  for  repatriation  and  unemployment  are  provided  for  each 
circondario  in  a somewhat  elaborate  report,  Ufficio  del  Lavoro,  Dati  statistici  sui 
rimpatriati  per  causa  di  guerra  e sulla  disoccupazione  ( Pubblica-zioni , Serie  B,  No.  45), 
Rome,  1915.  A trade-unionist  estimate  was  that  one  million  had  returned  in  the 
same  weeks.  See  “ La  guerra  e 1’emigrazione,”  in  La  Confederazione  del  Lavoro 
(monitore  ufficiale  della  Confederazione  Generale  del  Lavoro),  September  16,  1914, 
pp.  669  f. 

3 See  a note  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1916,  No.  5,  pp.  59  f. 


34 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


ever,  exempting  no  country.  A pall  fell  over  wage-earning.  No 
land  seemed  hospitable.  Italy  was  the  old  mother.  So  in  Septem- 
ber and  October,  but  much  more  in  November  and  December, 
returned  emigrants  began  to  pour  in  from  the  Americas.  In  the 
spring,  when  it  became  manifest  that  Italy  would  enter  the  war,  a 
new  wave  of  emigration  came  from  Germany  and  Austria.1  War 
being  declared  in  May,  the  July-September  repatriations  from 
overseas  again  became  heavy.2  From  all  lands  men  came  to  join 
the  colors.3  By  1916  the  return  movement  had  almost  run  its 
course.  Between  July,  19x4,  and  December,  1915,  for  every  100 
emigrants  who  left  by  Italian  ports,  412  returned  — an  inverse 
migration,  assuredly,  without  parallel ! 

But  sensitiveness  to  foreign  changes,  acting  with  astonishing 
immediacy  and  thoroughness,  is  only  the  first  deduction  to  be 
made  from  the  statistics  of  return.  A second  is  this:  in  the  last 
thirty  years  Italian  emigration  has  become  increasingly  of  a 
temporary  nature.  Note  the  high  percentage  of  emigrants  re- 
turned from  the  United  States  in  1897-1901  as  compared  with 
1887-91,  and  the  high  percentage  in  1902-06,  almost  as  high  as  in 
1892-96,  when  economic  conditions  were  so  radically  different; 
and  note  the  astonishing  rate  in  the  years  after  1906.  From 
Brazil  one  expects  a heavy  backflow  of  the  tide,  but  the  Argen- 
tine Republic,  despite  conditions  which  have  brought  more  immi- 
grants to  her  shores  per  year  than  ever  before,  has  certainly  also 
sent  extraordinary  numbers  back  into  Italy. 

Some  day  it  should  be  possible  to  measure  closely  the  length  of 
sojourn  which  the  Italians  make  abroad.  On  the  basis  of  data  not 
very  explicitly  described  the  Italian  Commissioner-General  con- 
cluded that  the  stay  in  the  United  States,  when  not  permanent, 
was  terminated  in  most  cases  within  five  years ; the  stay  in  Argen- 
tina in  from  two  to  five  years.4  Very  recently  the  same  official 

1 Calimani,  p.  17. 

2 “ Notizie  statistiche  reassuntive  sulla  emigrazione  italiana  transoceanica  negli 
anni  1914  e 1915,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1916,  No.  2,  pp.  24  f.;  see  also  pp.  16  f. 

3 Even  Egypt,  according  to  an  estimate,  sent  back  2000  for  this  end.  Nisi, 
“ Lettera  dal  Cairo,”  La  Vita  Italiana,  August  15,  1915,  p.  166. 

1 “ Relazione  sui  servizi,”  etc.,  Boll.  Emig.,  1910,  No.  18,  p.  40. 


RETURN.  CIRCUMSTANCES  OF  EMIGRATION 


35 


has  attempted  to  collect  more  accurate  statistics.  Until  his  re- 
sults appear  we  may  gratefully  study  a series  of  figures  which  the 
Commissioner- General  of  Immigration  of  the  United  States  has 
compiled  annually  since  1908.  These  show  the  number  of  Italians 
emigrated  from  the  United  States  after  a residence  of  from  one  to 
five  years.  In  the  following  table  I have  stated  these  figures  in 
percentages  of  all  Italians  emigrated  in  the  year  in  question,  who 
do  not  expect  to  return  to  the  United  States  within  twelve 
months: 1 


1908.  . . .82.6  per  cent 

1909. .  . .80.9  “ 

1910. .  . . 77.8  “ 


1911 . .  . . 78.0  per  cent 

1912 .. ..  72.0  “ 

1913 67.9  “ 


1914.  . . .68.5  per  cent 

1915.  . . .81.8  “ 

1916 57.9  “ 


The  figures  allow  certain  inferences.  They  show  beyond  question 
that  a heavy  majority  of  those  who  return  do  so  within  five  years 
after  their  arrival.  The  returned  of  1908  and  1909  were  largely  of 
those  who  had  so  abundantly  come  in  the  preceding  prosperous 
years.  With  a slackened  immigration,  the  percentage  would 
hardly  be  so  high  in  ensuing  years.  The  first  war  months  pre- 
cipitated the  departure  of  the  more  recent  immigrants,  those  most 
likely  to  desire  to  return  to  their  families  and  their  affairs  in  Italy. 
In  the  second  war  year,  many  recent  immigrants  having  already 
departed,  the  older  residents  stood  forth  more  prominently. 


How  frequently  does  it  happen  that  those  who  go  back  to  Italy 
emigrate  again  ? Certainly  many  return  to  the  countries  of 
Europe,  but  they  have  never  been  counted.  Many  return  also  to 
the  United  States.  Nearly  half  a century  ago  the  Italian  consul- 
general  at  New  York  was  of  the  opinion  that  of  the  hundreds 
annually  who  went  back  to  Italy  most  returned  again  to  the 
United  States.2  Much  later,  during  the  thirteen  years  from  1896 
to  1908,  the  immigration  reports  of  the  United  States  gave  a count 
of  those  immigrants  who  “ had  been  in  the  United  States  before.” 

1 I have  taken  no  account  of  the  “ non-emigrant  ” Italians  who  departed,  since 
an  indistinguishable  though  large  portion  of  these  go  to  Canada  and  other  coun- 
tries after  only  a brief  stay  in  the  United  States.  My  table  excludes  likewise  all 
Italians  who  returned  to  Italy  in  less  than  one  year  after  arrival. 

2 Quoted  by  Carpi,  ii,  p.  247. 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


36 

The  sum  of  the  Italians  was  244,236.  In  1904  they  were  10  per 
cent  of  the  Italian  immigrants;  in  the  next  succeeding  years, 
21,  14,  and  7 per  cent.  In  the  decade  1897-1906  they  were  41  per 
cent  of  the  number  recorded  at  Italian  ports  as  having  returned 
from  the  United  States.  That  is,  in  effect,  two  out  of  every 
five  Italians  who  had  returned  from  the  United  States  had 
re-emigrated  thither.1 

No  statistics  exist  to  measure  the  frequency  with  which  Ital- 
ians, returned  to  Italy  from  one  country,  migrate  next  to  another. 
The  phenomenon  seems  not  even  to  have  come  under  observa- 
tion. Yet  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  a people  that  resorts 
readily  to  re-immigration  to  the  same  foreign  country,  and  one 
that  shows  frequent  migration  directly  from  one  foreign  country 
to  another,  and  in  general  develops  a great  temporary  emigration, 
will  also  vary  its  destination  from  year  to  year.  So  the  emigrant 
into  France  one  year  may  become  an  emigrant  into  Germany  the 
next.  But  does  the  emigrant  who  has  been  in  America  turn  to 
Europe  ? This  also  is  likely.  A study  of  the  figures  for  Europe 
and  America,  even  a study  by  compartments,  shows  that  it  often 
happens  (e.g.,  in  1910  and  1911)  that  a decreased  emigration  in 
one  direction  accompanies  an  increased  emigration  in  another.  It 
is  possible  that  if  records  of  such  movements  were  to  be  gathered 
they  would  reveal  an  amazing  frequency  of  proletariat  globe- 
trotting, a frequency  unequalled  by  the  upper-class  travellers  of 
the  richer  countries. 

Still  another  trait  must  be  considered.  Even  in  countries  from 
which  there  is  little  emigration  internal  seasonal  movements  com- 
monly take  place.  In  Italy  these  have  had  an  extraordinary 
development,  involving  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men,  women, 
and  children  a year.  They  go  into  Emilia  for  the  rice  planting 
and  care,  into  Latium  for  the  grain  harvest,  and  so  forth.  Those 
who  years  ago  went  down  from  the  uplands  of  Tuscany  to  labor 
in  the  maremma  have  even  been  said  to  be  the  direct  forerunners 

] This  interesting  series  of  statistics  was  discontinued  because  “ it  was  believed 
the  continuation  of  the  . . . figures  would  be  surplusage  and  lead  to  confusion  in 
understanding  the  immigration  and  emigration  tables.”  (Letter  to  the  author 
from  the  Acting  Commissioner-General,  February  9,  1917.) 


RETURN.  CIRCUMSTANCES  OF  EMIGRATION 


37 


of  the  Tuscan  foreign  emigration.1  Much  of  the  emigration  into 
Europe  is  of  this  seasonal  sort,  the  same  individuals  participating 
for  years  on  end.  The  extraordinary  migration  of  building  work- 
men out  of  Venetia  is  an  example;  for  no  sharp  distinction,  in 
this  regard,  is  to  be  drawn  between  agricultural  and  industrial 
workers.  If  statistics  could  be  had  they  would  doubtless  show 
that  many  persons  who  depart  for  the  United  States  between 
March  and  May,  returning  between  October  and  December, 
repeat  their  migration  in  the  following  spring.  There  can  be  no 
question  at  all  regarding  the  existence  of  a great  seasonal  move- 
ment between  Italy  and  Argentina.  The  laborer  who  goes  to 
Argentina  in  November,  and  stays  till  May,  can  engage  in  agricul- 
ture both  at  home  and  in  Argentina.  It  was  the  known  existence 
of  a great  seasonal  emigration  that  led  the  Italian  authorities  in 
early  days  to  regard  the  terms  temporary  and  periodic  as  inter- 
changeable, who  thereby  erred  only  through  excess. 

Viewed  from  one  angle,  the  history  of  emigration  from  Italy  is 
but  the  collective  histories  of  the  emigration  from  the  sixteen 
compartments.  When  the  first  regional  figures  were  gathered, 
they  revealed  a preponderant  development  in  the  North.  The 
emigration  census  of  1871,  for  whose  inaccuracies  due  allowance 
must  be  made,  held  that  a quarter  of  all  emigrants  were  from 
Piedmont,  that  more  than  a quarter  were  from  Liguria,  and  that 
Lombardy  and  Venetia  contributed  largely;  on  the  other  hand, 
that  Sicily,  Calabria,  and  Basilicata  could  each  claim  but  from 
one  to  three  per  cent.2  Carpi  found  that  in  1871  Reggio  di  Cala- 
bria — later  a prolific  source  — had  only  48  emigrants,  Syra- 
cuse 41.  Little  wonder  then  that,  when  Potenza  contributed  only 
369  emigrants  in  1869  and  as  many  as  1439  in  1871,  he  exclaimed, 
“What  an  enormous  increase !” 3 — but  in  the  latter  year  Udine  in 
the  North  yielded  19,321  emigrants.  In  the  decade  of  the  seven- 
ties the  southern  compartments  continued  greatly  to  enlarge  their 

1 A.  Mori,  “ L’emigrazione  dalla  Toscana  e particolarmente  dal  Casentino,”  Boll. 
Emig.,  1910,  No.  12,  p.  77. 

In  the  Appendix,  I have  elaborated  an  account  of  the  Italian  internal  migration. 

2 Censimento  degli  italiani  all’estero,  31  dicembre  1871  (Rome,  1874),  p.  cxxi. 

3 Carpi,  i,  p.  19. 


3§ 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


quotas.  How  they  presently  came  to  outrival  the  northern  can 
best  be  read  in  a table:  1 


1876-1886 

(average) 

1887-1900 

(average) 

1901-1909 

(average) 

1911 

1913 

Piedmont 

29.529 

27,447 

55,076 

52,335 

78,663 

Liguria 

5,218 

4,325 

6,793 

7,052 

9,428 

Lombardy 

19,622 

21,660 

50,178 

65,069 

87,133 

Venetia 

37,662 

98,107 

98,765 

97,588 

123,853 

North  Italy 

92,031 

151,539 

210,812 

222,044 

299,077 

Emilia 

4,966 

n,866 

33,209 

32,459 

39,134 

Tuscany 

8,856 

13,764 

30,700 

37,442 

45,599 

Marches 

945 

4,261 

21,907 

17,232 

32,069 

Umbria 

32 

608 

9,824 

12,098 

17,851 

Latium 

33 

1,104 

12,273 

9,121: 

25,962 

Central  Italy 

14,832 

31,603 

107,913 

108,352 

160,615 

Abruzzi  and  Molise 

4,083 

14,320 

48,744 

32,025 

62,038 

Campania 

9,921 

29,405 

70,766 

54,149 

78,633 

Apulia 

618 

3,106 

20,906 

20,318 

41,837 

Basilicata 

5,636 

9,245 

14,460 

10,426 

16,153 

Calabria 

5,542 

I5,355 

43,279 

30,382 

SS^o 

Sicily 

2,010 

14,596 

75,265 

50,789 

146,061 

Sardinia  

IOI 

501 

5,101 

5,359 

12,274 

Southern  and  Insular  Italy 

27,911 

86,528 

278,521 

203,448 

412,906 

Total 

134,774 

269,670 

597,246 

533,844 

872,598 

What  proportion  of  the  inhabitants  has  gone  ? During  most 
of  the  past  thirty  years,  in  Venetia,  about  thirty  in  the  thousand; 
and  in  a large  part  of  this  period,  the  same  proportion  in  Calabria, 
Basilicata,  and  the  Abruzzi  and  Molise.  Only  less  powerful  has 
been  the  outward  current  from  Lombardy  and  Piedmont  in  the 
North  and  Sicily  in  the  South.  In  the  regions  given  least  to  emi- 
gration in  recent  years  — Liguria  and  Sardinia  — the  rate  has 
been  about  six  in  the  thousand.2 

Since  1876  the  Bureau  of  Statistics  has  reported  the  sex  and  age 
of  all  emigrants  and  whether  they  have  planned  to  depart  alone 

1 It  is  based,  since  we  lack  other  figures,  on  the  compilations  of  the  Bureau  of 
Statistics.  See  Boll.  Emig.,  1910,  No.  18,  p.  3,  Statistica  della  etnigrazione  for  1910 
and  1911,  and  Bolleltino  dell'  Ufficio  del  Lavoro,  serie  qttindicinale,  July  14,  1914. 

2 A valuable  compilation  of  statistics  is  in  the  Commissioner-General’s  report. 
Boll.  Emig.,  1910,  No.  18,  p.  5. 


RETURN.  CIRCUMSTANCES  OF  EMIGRATION 


39 


or  with  others  of  their  family.  The  sheer  detail  of  the  record  we 
may  here  be  spared.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  in  the  earlier  years 
nearly  nine-tenths  of  the  emigrants  were  males,1  and  that  pretty 
steadily,  in  the  thirty-odd  years  since,  four-fifths  have  been.  The 
case  seems  the  more  striking  when  it  is  recalled  that  among  the 
immigrants  of  all  peoples  into  the  United  States  the  average  of 
males  has  hung  about  two-thirds.  The  emigration  of  children 
from  Italy  has  been  much  less  than  the  immigration  from  all  coun- 
tries into  the  United  States.  Only  in  the  depressed  period  of  the 
nineties  did  the  number  of  women  and  children  increase,  and  the 
number  of  those  who  left  in  company  with  others  of  their  families. 
If  we  knew  nothing  of  Italian  emigration  save  these  telling  figures 
we  could  not  fail  to  infer  its  strangely  temporary  character. 

This  character,  we  have  already  said,  has  been  accentuated 
with  the  passing  years.  Has  it  been  so  in  the  sense  that  more 
Italians  go  away  for  a short  time,  or  in  the  sense  that  a larger 
proportion  of  those  who  go  leave  for  a short  absence  only,  or 
finally  that  those  who  go  away  temporarily  stay  away  for  a 
shorter  time  ? More  do  go  away  for  temporary  absence.  The 
increasing  totals  of  emigration  confirm  that.  There  is  no  evi- 
dence that  the  temporary  emigrants  are  as  individuals  a larger 
percentage  of  all  persons  who  in  one  year  or  another  emigrate. 
Rather,  the  figures  just  reviewed  encourage  the  deduction  that 
the  percentage  has  been  unchanged.  Hence,  the  meaning  of  the 
general  tables  showing  what  proportion  of  emigrants  return  to 
Italy  must  be  that  the  stay  abroad,  especially  the  stay  in  the 
Americas,  is  generally  briefer  than  it  was.  Here  essentially  is  the 
sense  in  which  Italian  emigration  is  increasingly  temporary. 

How  the  emigrants  will  fare  abroad  depends  to  no  mean  degree 
on  their  occupational  equipment.  What  has  this  been  ? 

Working  upon  his  data  of  1870,  Carpi  classified  the  emigrants 
according  to  their  origin  in  country  or  town.  The  rural  he  deemed 
to  be  about  five-sixths  of  all.  When  statistics  of  occupation  were 
first  officially  collected,  in  1878,  they  indicated,  just  as  their 
successors  have  done,  that  the  great  mass  of  emigrants  came  from 
the  agricultural  districts.  It  is  true  that  those  directly  employed 

1 Carpi  inferred  a similar  fraction  for  the  years  1870  and  1871  (i,  pp.  19,  31). 


4o 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


in  field  undertakings  have  appreciably  declined  from  the  earlier 
level.  But  on  the  other  hand,  the  number  of  common  day 
laborers  has  by  at  least  as  much  increased.  The  truth  is  that 
these  two  groups  have  never  been  securely  marked  off  from  one 
another.  Both  originate  mainly  in  the  country.  No  alchemy  is 
needed  to  make  over  the  farm  hand  into  a navvy.  It  is  doubtless 
the  case  that  when  a field  laborer  has  for  a season  or  more  outside 
of  Italy  worked  as  a navvy,  he  tends  to  be  classified  as  such  in  his 
subsequent  departures.1  In  this  fact  chiefly,  I venture  to  suppose, 
rather  than  in  a change  of  attitude  of  the  authorities,  lies  the 
explanation  of  the  steady  and  marked  increase  in  the  emigration 
of  common  laborers. 

The  great  classes  of  common  laborers  and  workers  in  agriculture 
have  been  two-thirds  or  more  of  all  emigrants.2  Particularly 
heavy  has  been  the  agricultural  representation  in  the  southern 
compartments.  There  the  industrial  and  artisan  groups  — if 
from  the  last  named  we  consent  to  exclude  workers  in  the  build- 
ing trades  — also  abound.  On  the  other  hand  an  emphatic 
predominance  in  the  representation  of  building  workmen  has 
characterized  the  northern  compartments,  Venetia  (notably), 
Lombardy,  and  Piedmont.  There  have  never  been  more  than  a few 
professional  persons.  Among  the  occupied  women  who  emigrate, 
the  agricultural  stock  has  largely  dominated,  especially  in  the 
South,  but  undoubtedly  many  women  accustomed  to  work  occa- 
sionally in  the  fields  are  listed  as  of  indefinite  occupation.  From 
the  North  many  women  depart,  who  in  the  neighboring  countries 
become  factory  workers. 

Although  the  backflow  into  Italy  may  differ  in  important  respects 
from  the  outflow,  the  Italian  government  has  never  attempted  to 
describe  it.  Once  only,  and  then  for  just  the  two  years  1905 
and  1906,  a special  analysis  was  made  of  the  repatriations  from 
overseas.  Its  results,  meager  and  insufficiently  representative 
though  they  are,  cannot  be  passed  by.  They  show  the  women  to 

1 In  the  fiscal  year  1916,  the  number  of  Italian  farm  laborers  admitted  to  the 
United  States  slightly  exceeded  the  number  of  laborers.  Among  the  Italians  de- 
parted from  the  United  States,  the  laborers  were  about  one  thousand  times  as 
numerous  as  the  farm  laborers. 

2 A detailed  table  of  occupations  is  reproduced  in  the  Appendix. 


RETURN.  CIRCUMSTANCES  OF  EMIGRATION 


41 


have  fallen  slightly  under  their  proportion  among  outgoing  emi- 
grants, those  from  Brazil  being  much  more  numerous  relatively 
than  those  from  the  United  States.  They  show  the  men  aged 
between  sixteen  and  forty-five  years  to  have  been  over  three- 
fifths  of  all  returning  emigrants,  a proportion  considerably  larger 
than  among  outgoing  emigrants.  More  than  two-thirds  of  all 
who  returned  were  unaccompanied  by  members  of  their  families; 
of  those  returning  from  the  United  States  three-quarters,  of  those 
from  the  Plata  countries  two- thirds.  Indeed,  if  the  return  move- 
ment from  Brazil  is  excluded,  with  its  notable  representation  of 
families,  the  evidence  points  convincingly  to  a return  to  Italy  of 
men  who  had  planned,  on  departing,  to  be  gone  for  only  a time. 
To  Calabria  the  returns  were  much  more  frequent,  relatively, 
than  to  Sicily,  and  these  in  turn  more  frequent  than  to  Basilicata.1 

Interesting  fight  upon  the  occupational  character  of  the  return- 
ing Italians  has  been  provided,  since  1908,  by  the  United  States. 
So  numerous  are  the  unskilled  laborers  found  to  be  that  they  de- 
serve to  be  set  off  in  a table.  I have  added  together  the  laborers 
and  farm  laborers  for  each  year  and  determined  their  percentage 
of  all  the  emigrants. 


H 

vO 

O 

00 

■ • 83.4 

I9II  . . . 

• • -7S-4 

1914. . . 

• • -77-o 

1909 . . . 

• ■ ■ 74-o 

1912. . . 

...81.5 

1915- • • 

...83.1 

1910. . . 

. . .67.1 

1913. . . 

. . .78.7 

1916. . . 

• • 83.9 

Mainly,  then,  the  temporary  emigration  is  made  up  of  unskilled 
laborers.  They  expect,  in  leaving  Italy,  not  to  develop  ties 
abroad,  but  only  to  lay  by  dollars.  And  when  the  dollars  cease 
to  come  the  return  home  begins.  If  a comparison  be  made  of  the 
percentages  just  stated  with  the  series  of  figures  for  the  total  num- 
ber of  emigrant  Italians,  it  will  show  that  with  but  one  minor 
exception  the  percentages  actually  rise  in  the  years  of  greater 
emigration  and  decline  in  the  years  of  less. 

1 On  the  assumption  that  emigrants  generally  return  after  four  years  of  absence, 
the  repatriations  were  compared  with  the  emigrants  of  1901  and  1902.  The  assump- 
tion, however  modestly  put  forth,  cannot  be  substantiated,  since  the  fluctuations 
in  the  totals  for  repatriations  do  not  even  remotely  follow  the  same  course  (four 
years  later)  as  the  totals  for  emigration.  The  general  results  of  the  analysis  of  the 
figures  for  1905  and  1906  appear  in  the  cited  report  Boll.  Emig.,  1910,  No.  18, 


42 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


Two  main  purposes  have  guided  us  in  these  statistical  chapters : 
to  find  the  strength  of  the  outflow  from  Italy  and  of  the  backflow 
into  Italy,  and  to  find  the  strength  of  the  inflow  into  particular 
countries  and  the  outflow  from  them.  A word  of  recapitulation 
may  add  definiteness  to  the  picture.  Before  the  unification  of 
Italy  the  emigration  was  slight.  Since  about  1875  it  has  grown 
steadily,  making  a sudden  bound  in  1901  to  a new  level,  which  it 
has  since  not  only  maintained  but  raised.  Official  figures  for  the 
last  four  decades  show  an  emigration  of  fourteen  million,  but  this 
number  probably  understates  the  truth  by  at  least  two  or  three 
million.  About  two-thirds  of  the  total  emigration  is  temporary. 
Of  the  emigration  into  Europe  at  least  nine-tenths  is  such,  and 
that  into  America  has  become  so  increasingly.  It  is  safe  to  say 
that  annually  in  the  last  dozen  years  (before  the  war)  between 
300,000  and  400,000  emigrants  have  returned  to  Italy. 

The  permanent  emigration  is  equally  striking.  I have  already 
given  a figure  for  the  period  1882-1901,  calculated  as  the  differ- 
ence between  the  excess  of  births  over  deaths  and  the  growth  of 
the  census  population.  The  following  table,  compiled  by  this 
method,  presents  the  permanent  emigration  from  Italy  in  the 
half-century  1862-191 1.1 

Total  Net  Emigration 

1862-1871 16,253 

1872-1881 362,335 

1882-1901 2,190,434 

1901-1911 1,621,266 


Entire  period 


4,190,288 


pp.  31-43.  Subsequently  the  details  were  elaborated  by  Dr.  Beneduce,  op.  cit. 
It  was  planned  also  to  analyze  the  figures  later  than  1906,  but  by  1916  no  results 
had  been  published. 

1 The  chief  sources  I have  utilized  are  the  Annuario  Stalistico  Italiano  for  1884 
(pp.  46,  64),  that  for  1904  (p.  95),  that  for  1911  (p.  17);  and  a volume  published 
by  the  Direzione  Generale  della  Statistica,  Movimento  della  popolazione  nell'  anno 
1 go j (p.  ix).  To  illustrate  my  procedure:  since  the  census  of  1901  was  taken  on 
February  10  and  that  of  1911  on  May  10, 1 have  included  the  excess  of  births  over 
deaths  for  eight-ninths  of  the  first  year  and  for  four-ninths  of  the  last  year,  as  the 
entire  intervening  excess;  and  I have  used  the  de  facto  census  population. 

It  is  true  that  some  emigrants  apparently  lost  in  one  intercensal  period  will  re- 
turn to  Italy  in  the  next.  However,  they  will  then  only  tend  to  diminish  the  total 
loss  for  the  next  period.  No  considerable  deduction  has  to  be  made  for  emigrants 
returning  after  the  last  census  date. 


RETURN.  CIRCUMSTANCES  OF  EMIGRATION 


43 


Four  million  emigrants  finally  disappeared  in  the  half  century. 
This  large  number  would  be  enough  to  place  Italy  among  a very 
few  great  emigrating  nations.  What,  however,  gives  to  the  coun- 
try its  peculiar  place  among  such  nations  is  the  accompanying 
fact  of  a temporary  emigration  fully  twice  as  copious  as  the 
permanent,  creating  a situation  to  which  there  has  never  been  a 
parallel. 

Writings  upon  emigration  frequently  enunciate  a law  of  emi- 
gration. The  first  emigrants  are  nearly  all  men;  after  a while  the 
women  and  children  follow;  emigration  ceases  — the  cycle  is 
complete.  This  generalization  does,  indeed,  with  some  fairness 
describe  the  course  of  certain  completed  or  lately  declining  mi- 
grations. But  there  is  no  necessity  in  the  supposed  law.  The 
Italian  emigration  has,  since  its  infancy,  been  composed,  four 
parts  out  of  five,  of  males,  and  of  these  chiefly  in  the  productive 
years  of  life.  It  is  unsafe  to  set  forth  laws  of  emigration  without 
calculating  the  possible  effects  of  a cheapened,  rapid  ocean  trans- 
portation service  and  the  willingness  of  great  nations  to  receive 
men  for  the  strength  that  is  in  their  arms  and  their  readiness  to 
toil  hard.  So  long  as  these  things  continue,  so  long  as  there  are 
poverty-burdened  Italians  whose  Italy  is  whatever  country  will 
give  them  their  bread,  so  long  may  Italian  temporary  emigration 
continue.  And,  as  it  has  risen,  so  some  day  it  may  decline  into 
insignificance  without  having  ever,  for  a last  step,  become  char- 
acteristically an  emigration  of  families. 


BOOK  II 


CAUSES 


CHAPTER  III 


INTRODUCTORY 

Hopes,  passions,  and  calculations,  uniquely  colored  for  each  in- 
dividual among  the  millions  who  have  departed  from  Italy,  have 
been  the  immediate  precursors  of  the  decision  to  emigrate.  One 
man  gazes  ahead,  another  is  driven  from  behind;  one  dreams, 
another  measures  and  weighs  his  thoughts;  one  reasons,  then 
follows  with  his  will,  while  another  unquestioningly  accepts  the 
decision  of  a first.  In  so  complex  a situation,  some  loss  of  verisi- 
militude and  of  interest  accompanies  the  attempt  to  reach  behind 
the  concreteness  of  the  surface  to  a view  of  general  and  deeper 
causes,  of  whose  articulate  form  the  emigrant  may  be  wholly  un- 
aware. Yet  no  other  course  than  this  is  open  to  us.  In  no  other 
way  can  we  apprehend  the  full  strength  of  the  forces  which  press 
and  are  not  satisfied  till  the  world  highways  that  cross  the  horizon 
have  been  taken. 

To  discern  the  larger  causes  is  no  simple  matter.  And  whoever 
critically  scans  the  innumerable  utterances  upon  the  causes  of 
emigration  must  often  shake  his  head  at  their  abounding  mis- 
emphases.  Cheap  and  convenient  transportation,  it  seems  al- 
most gratuitous  to  say,  is  not  at  bottom  a cause.  Transportation 
is  as  cheap  from  Argentina  to  Italy  as  from  Italy  to  Argentina. 
Nor  do  the  instigations  of  the  agents  of  steamship  companies  for  a 
long  time  constitute  a cause.  If  a deeper  pressure  be  lacking,  the 
truth  will  presently  be  noised  about.  Nor  does  the  spirit  of  ad- 
venture, so  commonly  emphasized,1  and  often,  no  doubt,  a con- 
comitant of  emigration,  really  actuate  whole  bodies  of  people 
to  migrate.  And  although  it  be  true  that  many  of  the  Italian 
emigrants  to  the  United  States  come  upon  steamship  tickets 
purchased  in  the  United  States,  it  cannot  be  said  that  the  in- 
vitations of  friends  are  a cause. 

1 E.g.,  in  the  Atti  della  Giicnta  per  la  Inchiesta  Agraria  e sulle  Condizioni  delle 
Classi  Agricole,  15  vols.  Rome,  1879-84. 


47 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


48 

To  distinguish  the  temporary  from  the  long-time  causes  is 
quite  as  important  as  to  differentiate  the  accidental  from  the 
essential.  The  temporary  cause  is  generally  the  added  burden 
that  makes  the  other  burdens  unbearable.  Ravages  of  the  phyl- 
loxera or  the  olive-fly,  or  the  failure  of  the  wheat  crop,  have  at 
various  times  given  a sudden  impetus  to  emigration.  But  quite 
apart  from  the  uncertainty  which  attends  any  attempt  to  trace 
the  year-by-year  succession  of  such  causes,  they  cannot  pretend 
themselves  to  explain  a phenomenon  which  unfolds  in  several 
decades.  A chronological  comparison  of  the  movements  in  vari- 
ous regions  provides  no  better  clew.  The  fact  that  emigration 
from  Campania  was  abundant  before  it  became  so  in  Calabria, 
and  that  it  only  as  much  as  ten  or  fifteen  years  later  assumed 
large  proportions  in  Sicily,  need  signify  merely  that  the  occasion 
which  turned  a passive  into  an  active  cause  arose  earlier  in  one 
compartment  than  in  another.  Similarly,  the  fact  that  emigra- 
tion was  declining  sharply  in  one  section  of  Calabria  while  it  was 
rising  rapidly  in  another,  need  not  indicate  the  disappearance  of 
the  actuating  cause,  but  perhaps  only  a temporary  depletion  by 
heavy  emigration  in  the  ranks  of  the  people  upon  whom  the  cause 
might  act. 

The  most  conspicuous  difference  of  level  between  the  regions  of 
Italy  from  which  emigration  proceeds  and  the  countries  of  immi- 
gration is  economic.  The  causes  which  have  sustained  an  emigra- 
tion of  millions  of  persons  for  half  a century  do  in  truth  constitute 
a defect  or  an  inadequacy  of  great  magnitude  in  the  Italian  eco- 
nomic system.  Moral  causes  also,  less  conspicuous  but  very 
powerful,  have  acted  through  the  economic.  Though  some  fairly 
recent  developments  have  been  of  deep  significance,  our  study 
will  show  that  emigration  from  Italy  is  essentially  the  final  out- 
come of  a chain  of  causes  reaching  well  into  the  past  and,  as  such, 
is  a notable  historic  phenomenon.  Is  there  danger  that  we  may 
neglect  the  present  ? In  Italy,  largely,  the  past  is  the  present. 

A full  account  of  the  causes  of  Italian  emigration  would  require 
an  examination  of  the  conditions  in  each  region  of  the  country. 
Whoever  begins  such  a study,  not  unmindful  of  the  diverse  politi- 


INTRODUCTORY 


49 


cal  pasts  of  the  regions,  must  note  with  surprise  how  commonly 
economic  conditions  in  them  are  similar.  He  will  conclude  that 
many  words  can  be  saved  if  he  will  confine  his  statement  to  those 
things  which  are  typical  or  general  in  the  principal  regions.  I 
have  not,  I believe,  done  serious  injustice  in  limiting  my  analysis 
to  the  three  compartments  of  the  South  in  which  emigration  has 
had  greatest  importance  — Basilicata,  Calabria,  Sicily;  and  to 
three  corresponding  compartments  in  the  North  — - Venetia, 
Lombardy,  Piedmont.  Regions  adjacent  to  these  need  no  separ- 
ate judgment.  Central  Italy  may  be  passed  by,  because  the 
conditions  there  have  not,  at  least  till  recently,  made  for  much 
emigration. 

In  very  few  countries  of  the  world  do  the  causes  of  emigration 
show  themselves  in  such  prominence  as  in  the  south  of  Italy. 
There  emigration  has  been  well-nigh  expulsion;  it  has  been 
exodus,  in  the  sense  of  depopulation;  it  has  been  characteristically 
permanent.  So  the  South  is  a great  laboratory  in  which  emigra- 
tion may  be  studied  in  its  largest  aspects,  and  it  is  its  own  apology 
for  the  extended  treatment  which  I have  given  it.  But  also, 
because  of  this  very  elaboration,  it  will  be  possible  to  proceed 
more  summarily  in  our  subsequent  study  of  North  Italy.  Is  it  not 
first  of  all  true  that  throughout  Italy  the  agricultural  classes  have 
led  in  emigration  ? In  North  Italy,  let  us  admit,  the  proportion 
has  been  slightly  less  than  in  South  Italy,  but  not  to  such  an  ex- 
tent as  to  require  a different  emphasis  in  the  investigation  of 
causes.  In  a country  where  manufactures  are,  even  today,  in 
their  infancy,  where  mining  is  slight,  and  where  actually  one-half 
of  the  adult  male  population  is  engaged  in  agriculture,1  the  posi- 
tion of  the  craft  and  trading  population  must  be  mainly  dependent 
upon  the  fortunes  of  the  agricultural  classes. 

The  general  course  of  agricultural  fortunes  during  the  last  third 
of  the  nineteenth  century  is  reflected  in  certain  available  statisti- 
cal facts.  These  merit  mention  here  because  they  reveal  a phe- 
nomenon which  has  certainly  aggravated  the  persistent  causes 

1 This  was  true  at  the  census  of  1901  as  well  as  in  1882.  I have  seen  no  figures 
for  1911,  but  believe  that  it  is  still  true. 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


SO 

of  emigration.  After  1871,  while  the  population  was  increasing 
by  a quarter,  the  production  of  olive  oil  remained  stationary; 
that  of  wine,  rising  at  first,  became  stationary  after  about  1885. 
After  1884,  the  production  of  wheat,  which  occupies  the  greatest 
acreage  in  Italian  agriculture,  rose  about  20  per  cent,  partly  under 
the  stimulus  since  1888  of  a high  protective  tariff.  But  the  excess 
of  importations  of  wheat  over  exportations  rose  until  in  recent 
years  it  has  amounted  to  a quarter  of  the  home  production. 
Indian  corn,  of  which  a quantity  one-half  as  great  as  that  of  wheat 
is  annually  produced,  has  been  unvaried  in  amount  since  1884, 
but  an  importation  a fifth  as  great  as  the  home  production  has 
meanwhile  grown  up.  After  1870,  a large  increase  took  place  in 
the  production  of  oranges  and  lemons,  but  the  prices  declined  by 
65-70  per  cent.  Similar  great  declines  have  ruled,  since  before 
1880,  in  the  prices  of  many  other  important  agricultural  products, 
while  the  production  has  in  general  either  remained  stationary  or 
declined,  and  the  imports  have  risen.  Since  the  recent  rebound  in 
prices  belongs  to  a different  epoch,  we  may  here  ignore  it. 

From  this  cursory  survey  the  inference  is  inevitable  that  a force 
lying  partly  without  the  control  of  Italy  — the  competition  of 
other  countries  in  agriculture  — has  seriously  reduced  the  profit 
from  the  leading  industry  of  the  country.  How  far  that  industry 
was  in  a position  to  sustain  the  loss,  we  must  try  to  discover.  Our 
task  is  complicated,  and  no  atomistic  summation  of  different  ills 
can  accomplish  it.  Whatever  independence  various  forces  have 
had  originally,  they  have  later  come  to  interaction  and  generally 
to  mutual  intensification.  If  we  take  them  up  separately  in  this 
study,  it  is  only  to  make  clearer  their  individual  bearings. 


CHAPTER  IV 


SOUTH  ITALY.  I.  NATURE  AND  MAN 

There  is  a notion  long  current,  encouraged  by  the  existence  of 
various  garden-spots  and  of  certain  districts  especially  fitted  for 
agriculture,  that  the  Mezzogiorno  of  Italy  is  a region  peculiarly 
endowed  for  agriculture.  Of  far  the  greater  part  of  its  extent  this 
view  is  inaccurate.  Nature  is  not  wholly  favorable  there,  and  if 
man,  by  means  of  tillage,  irrigation,  and  fertilizer,  has  sometimes 
supplied  her  deficiencies,  he  has  more  generally  been  powerless  to 
remedy,  and  has  even  increased,  his  disabilities. 

One  primary  requisite  of  a successful  agriculture  is  lacking. 
The  rainfall  is  so  slight  and  virtually  absent  for  such  long  inter- 
vals of  time  that  the  richest  of  soils  would  produce  scantily.  The 
situation  is  worst  in  Sicily,  but  serious  enough  also  on  the  con- 
tinent. In  some  years,  the  summer  is  almost  devoid  of  rainfall, 
and  the  drought  may  endure  for  seven  months.  Though  the 
temperature  is  seldom  higher  than  during  the  hot  days  of  a Massa- 
chusetts summer,  the  heat  is  recurringly  great  day  after  day. 
Whatever  rain  falls,  therefore,  quickly  evaporates.  Within  sight 
of  the  blue  sea  the  grass  of  Sicily  is  a lifeless  brown  and  the  road  a 
powder  of  white.  The  stifling  scirocco  may  destroy  a year’s  crop. 
In  many  regions  it  is  necessary  to  go  long  distances  to  procure 
drinking  water,  and  a spring  rents  for  a high  sum.1 

The  range  of  products  suitable  for  this  climate  is  narrow,  com- 
prising chiefly  woody  plants  whose  fruits  mature  in  the  spring. 
Of  most  crops,  especially  the  herbaceous,  it  is  foreordained  that 
their  success  will  be  mediocre.  The  utility  of  fertilizer,  as  is  well 
known,  is  greatly  diminished  by  an  insufficiency  of  water.  Graz- 
ing and  dairying  cannot  thrive.  Whereas,  in  the  north  of  Italy 

1 Much  stress  is  laid  on  this  inconvenience  and  much  said  regarding  the  devices 
for  transporting  water,  in  the  reports  of  Inch.  Pari.  Cf.  Risultati  dell’  inchiesta  sulle 
condizioni  igieniche  e sanitarie  nei  comuni  del  regno:  relasione  generale  (Rome,  1886), 
ch.  v. 

si 


52 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


the  field  that  has  yielded  its  harvest  of  grain  becomes  pasture  for 
cattle,  plant  growth  in  the  South  ceases  after  the  crop  has  been 
gathered;  at  best  a few  goats  and  sheep  may  graze.  In  turn 
there  is  a deficiency  of  animal  manure,  and  of  animals  for  draft 
purposes  as  well. 

How  vitally  the  aridity  of  the  climate  has  involved  the  entire 
scheme  of  land  proprietorship  in  the  South  has  never  been  suffi- 
ciently recognized.  When,  in  the  nineties,  an  agrarian  agitation 
took  the  shape  of  a demand  for  the  division  of  the  latifundia,  the 
Marquis  di  Rudini  — - himself  the  owner  of  great  estates  in  Sicily 
- — elaborately  discussed  the  causes  of  the  maintenance  of  the  lati- 
fundium.  He  said,  “ A large  cultural  unit,  and  an  agrarian  rota- 
tion which  permits  the  soil  to  lie  fallow:  these  are  the  two  salient 
characteristics  of  the  latifundium  and  of  Sicilian  graniculture.  If 
the  rains  were  more  abundant  we  should  have  rich  pastures, 
plenty  of  manure,  and  a totally  different  agrarian  rotation.  The 
want  of  rains  and  the  scarcity  of  flowing  water  thus  potently  and 
invincibly  influence  the  entire  agrarian  economy  of  Sicily.”  1 A 
mixed  and  intensive  cultivation  upon  small  holdings,  fundamen- 
tally dependent,  as  it  would  be,  upon  a sufficient  water  supply, 
could  not,  he  believed,  prevail  in  the  great  interior  of  Sicily. 
Whether  the  case  is  really  so  hopeless  we  need  not  now  discuss.  In 
the  past,  certainly,  the  aridity  of  the  southern  climate  has  been  a 
heavy  impediment  in  the  way  of  a fortunate  social  economy.2 

Has  this  aridity  increased  within  historic  times  ? Such  forests 
as  in  ancient  days  covered  the  mountains  of  the  South  could  not, 
it  is  often  argued,  subsist  today.  Angelo  Mosso,  impressed  by  the 
size  of  the  ancient  aqueducts  and  bathing  establishments  in  Sicily, 
and  by  the  absence  or  diminutive  size  of  watercourses  where  in 
Roman  times  had  been,  according  to  contemporary  accounts, 
large  streams  and  luxuriant  forests,  believes  that  only  a decline  in 
the  rainfall  could  explain  the  change.3  While  climatologists  have 

1 A.  di  Rudini,  “ Terre  incolte  e latifondi,”  Giornale  degli  Economisti,  February, 

1895,  p.  171- 

2 Cf.  also,  on  the  relation  of  dryness  to  the  size  of  estates,  G.  Bruccoleri,  La 
Sicilia  di  oggi  (Rome,  1913),  pp.  425-428. 

3 A.  Mosso,  Vila  moderna  degli  italiani  (Milan,  1906),  pp.  234,  372-376,  385-394; 
cf.  I.  Giglioli,  Malessere  agrario  ed  alimentare  in  Italia  (Rome,  1903),  p.  354. 


SOUTH  ITALY.  NATURE  AND  MAN 


S3 


been  reluctant  to  hold  that  any  appreciable  alterations  of  climate 
could  take  place  within  the  short  span  of  human  history,  yet  some 
strong  arguments,  resting  on  geological  and  other  evidence,  have 
recently  been  urged,  which  tend  to  justify  the  popular  opinion.1 
It  is  a matter  upon  which  the  authoritative  word  has  yet  to  be 
spoken. 

If  dryness  of  soil  and  air  are  among  the  conditions  that  explain 
the  narrow  productivity  of  South  Italy,  at  least  it  may  be  said 
that  they  are  purely  natural  factors  and  that  man  is  not  to  blame 
for  them.  Unluckily,  however,  as  if  these  conditions  had  not  been 
made  ill  enough,  man  has  intensified  them,  and  has  added  to  them 
still  others  which  seriously  impede  agriculture.  It  is  a grave 
damage  that  deforestation  has  wrought,  and  the  penalty  of  the 
unwisdom  of  centuries  is  still  being  paid. 

In  the  ancient  world,  Sicily  and  the  southern  Apennines  were 
heavily  wooded.  Not  otherwise  can  the  numerous  references  and 
allusions  of  classical  literature  be  explained.2  When  the  Saracens 
came,  they  caused  the  Calabrian  coast  population  to  retreat  upon 
the  mountains,  where  considerable  felling  of  trees  seems  to  have 
taken  place;  but  they  probably  did  not  greatly  hurt  the  forests  of 
Sicily.  No  definite  picture  of  mediaeval  deforestation  can  now  be 
drawn,  but  it  is  clear  that  by  the  twelfth  century  the  monasterial 
preserves  had  begun  to  be  invaded.  Undoubtedly  the  communes 
cut  down  forests.  In  the  eighteenth  century  and  early  nineteenth, 
destruction  proceeded  on  a large  scale,  at  first,  “ with  some  re- 
serve and  moderation,  but  later  with  vandalic  fury,  especially 
during  the  constant  and  frequent  succession  and  restoration  of 
various  governments.”  3 The  pace  was  quickened  again  after  the 

1 See  E.  Huntington,  “ Climatic  Change  and  Agricultural  Exhaustion  as  Elements 
in  the  Fall  of  Rome,”  Quarterly  Journal  of  Economics,  February,  1917,  pp.  173- 
208. 

* Mosso  has  garnered  some  of  the  passages;  pp.  369-400. 

3 G.  Podesta,  “ Disboscamento,”  in  Supplement  alia  Sesla  Edizione  della  Nucma 
Enciclopedia  Italiana  (Turin,  1893),  iii,  p.  179.  Cf.  L.  Bianchini,  Della  storia  delle 
finanze  del  Regno  di  Napoli  (Naples,  1859),  PP-  3°d  f.,  419,  423.  On  the  earlier 
period,  see  G.  Salvioli,  Le  nostre  origini;  estudi  sulle  condizioni  fisiche,  economiche  e 
sociali  d’ltalia  nel  medio  evo  prima  del  mille  (Naples,  1913),  pp.  108  fi.  and  G.  Wer- 
mert,  Die  Insel  Sicilien  (Berlin,  1905),  pp.  122  fi. 


54 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  to  be  slackened  only  in  the 
recent  period. 

It  is  curious  that  the  great  deforestations  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury should  have  been  closely  related  to  two  movements  in  Italy 
whose  intention  was  in  a high  degree  beneficent.  These  wrere  the 
abolition  of  feudalism  and  the  secularization  of  ecclesiastical 
lands.  We  must  stop  for  a moment  to  examine  both. 

Feudalism  was  abolished  in  the  continental  Neapolitan  king- 
dom in  1806,  in  Sicily  in  1812.  As  a compensation  for  the  cessa- 
tion of  popular  rights  upon  the  baronial  estates,  parts  of  these 
estates  were  given  to  the  communes,  as  trustees  for  the  people, 
among  whom  they  were,  in  the  next  instance,  to  be  divided.  A 
considerable  distribution  was  made  at  once;  a lull  under  the  re- 
stored Bourbons  was  followed  by  greater  activity  after  the  middle 
of  the  century,  and  all  in  all  a good  deal  of  land  was  divided.1 

Half  a century  after  the  abolition  of  feudalism  the  extensive 
lands  of  the  Church  were  secularized.  By  a series  of  measures 
enacted  in  the  period  185 5-73,  various  classes  of  religious  incorpo- 
ration were  suppressed  and  their  lands  scattered.  In  Sicily  a law  of 
1862  compelled  the  corporations  to  offer  their  lands  in  perpetual 
emphyteuses.  Other  laws  provided  for  the  final  alienation  of 
lands,  which  presently  took  place  upon  a stupendous  scale.  In 
the  years  1867-1905,  700,000  hectares  (say  1,750,000  acres)  wTere 

1 In  Basilicata,  it  has  been  reckoned,  16,161  hectares  were  distributed  from  1806 
to  1815,  only  8788  from  1815  to  i860;  under  the  new  government,  however,  from 
1861  to  1887,  17,238  hectares.  See  S.  Piot,  “La  Basilicate,”  Annales  des  Sciences 
Politiques,  January  15,  1907,  p.  36;  P.  Lacava,  “La  Basilicata,”  Nuova  Anlologia, 
May  1,  1903,  p.  144.  No  figures  regarding  the  sum  of  the  transactions  are  quite 
reliable,  nor  do  we  know  how  much  land  the  communes  in  the  first  place  acquired, 
since  litigation,  especially  under  the  Bourbons,  has  not  succeeded  in  defining  the 
status  of  many  lands;  on  this,  see  the  conclusions  of  a competent  student,  F.  Area, 
Calabria  vera  (Reggio  Calabria,  1907),  pp.  45  f. 

On  some  of  the  changes  that  followed  the  abolition  of  feudalism,  see  A.  Coppi, 
Annali ' d’ Italia  dal  1750  (Rome),  iii  (1825),  pp.  263-269,  and  iv  (1827),  pp.  106-112; 
G.  Salvioli,  Trattato  di  storia  del  diritto  italiano,  6th  ed.  (Turin,  1908),  pp.  241-246; 
Bianchini,  pp.  399-41 1;  E.  Caselli,  “ La  ripartizione  dei  demanii  nel  Mezzogiomo,” 
in  Nuova  Antologia,  December  16,  1900,  pp.  630-651;  E.  Ciclfi,  7 demani  popolari 
e le  leggi  agrarie  (Rome,  1906),  ch.  vi. 


SOUTH  ITALY.  NATURE  AND  MAN  55 

sold  — half  in  the  first  six  years,  two-thirds  by  1877  — and  of 
these  a large  part  were  in  the  south  of  Italy.1 

What  lends  such  great  significance  to  the  disposal  of  the  feudal 
and  ecclesiastical  lands  is  the  circumstance  that  they  were  plenti- 
fully covered  with  timber.  While  the  small  folk  had  been  clear- 
ing their  properties  for  cultivation  in  preceding  centuries  the  great 
feudal  lords  and  ecclesiastical  corporations  had  conserved  their 
forests.  Indeed,  wherever  common  rights  (usi  civici ) existed  — - 
and  they  were  peculiarly  an  institution  of  the  South  — the  peas- 
sants  were  truly  joint-owners  of  the  forests,  and  neither  lord  nor 
peasant  could  lawfully  undertake  to  fell  trees  beyond  his  imme- 
diate needs.  Moreover,  it  was  not  until  the  nineteenth  century 
that  it  became  commercially  profitable  to  fell  more  than  sufficed 
for  local  wants. 

The  allotment  of  feudal  lands  was  the  signal  for  deforestation. 
Since  the  shares  were  small,  they  had  to  be  cleared  before  being 
tilled.  The  Sicilian  emphyteuses  were  essentially  improvement 
leases,  and  what  that  implies  for  deforestation  can  be  inferred 
from  the  fact  that  one-tenth  of  the  area  of  the  island  had  been 
subject  to  the  religious  bodies,  which  had  placed  under  cultivation 
only  the  eleventh  part  of  their  land. 

Some  blame  also  rests  upon  the  forestry  laws  and  their  admin- 
istration. The  act  of  1877,  for  instance,  removed  restrictions  that 
had  previously  protected  wide  stretches  of  forest  land.  Whoever 
wished  to  evade  the  laws  had  a simple  task,  and  the  communes 


1 At  the  end  of  1877,  the  sales  in  the  South  stood: 

Abruzzi  and  Molise 

Campania 

Apulia 

Basilicata 

Calabria 

Sicily 


12,109  hectares 
33,37°  “ 

96,440  “ 

39,106  “ 

36,387  “ 

17,851  “ 


Total 


235,263 


With  the  figures  for  Sicily  should  be  considered  the  192,000  hectares  leased  under 
the  emphyteusis  contract. 

Perhaps  the  best  account  of  the  secularization  movement  is  by  G.  C.  Bertozzi, 
“ Notizie  storiche  e statistiche  sul  riordinamento  dell’asse  ecclesiastico  nel  regno 
d’ltalia  ” in  Annali  di  Statistica,  Ser.  II,  iv  (Rome,  1879).  Cf.  Sachs,  pp.  285-296, 
300-309.  Introducing  new  material  is  a discussion,  “ Di  taluni  effetti  delle  nostre 
leggi  sul  patrimonio  ecclesiastico,”  in  Bollettino  di  Statistica  e di  Legislazione  Com- 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


56 

themselves  are  declared  to  have  offended  quite  as  much  as  private 
persons.  For  many  years  exports  of  lumber  were  heavy.1 

It  is  not  possible  to  measure  with  any  degree  of  accuracy  the 
extent  of  the  century’s  deforestation.  Plenty  of  statistics  have 
been  compiled,  but  they  are  either  far  from  complete  or  their 
terms  are  indefinite  — bosco,  for  example,  being  sometimes  ap- 
plied to  mere  scrub,  or  to  lands  that  goats  are  content  to  use  for 
pasture ! The  Italian  official  yearbooks  used  to  state  the  extent  of 
the  forest  area  but  their  figure  declined  little  with  the  passing 
years  and  finally  was  abandoned,  no  doubt  having  got  far  out  of 
relation  with  the  facts. 

What  is  the  more  tangible  aftermath  of  the  stripping  of  the 
forests  ? 

In  the  tertiary  exposures  of  the  Apennines,  and  in  some  older 
formations  in  Sicily,  there  is  a physical  predisposition  to  land- 
slides, which  acts  with  heightened  frequency  whenever  the  stay- 
ing hold  of  the  trees  is  released.  Not  more  than  a third  of  the 
area  of  Sicily  is  terreno  stabile.  Over  vast  stretches  of  country,  the 
surface  soils,  even  when  their  slope  is  moderate,  become  soaked 
with  water  during  the  heavy  winter  rains,  and  when  their  weight 
becomes  over-great,  they  slide  toward  a stabler  level,  bringing 
disaster  to  houses  and  farms  and  not  seldom  to  human  lives  as 
well.2 

More  serious  still  is  the  effect  of  deforestation  upon  the  flow  of 
streams  and  the  morphology  of  their  beds.  Here  again  the  con- 

parata  (Rome,  Anno  V,  1904-05),  fasc.  i,  pp.  176-211.  Excellent  for  its  summary 
of  the  financial  operations  is  V.  Racca,  “ La  suppression  des  congregations  religieuses 
et  Fexpropriation,”  in  Journal  des  Economistes,  March,  1901,  pp.  321-343.  See  also 
Inch.  Pari.,  v',  pp.  223-227. 

1 On  the  progress  of  deforestation  and  the  motives  which  governed  it,  see  Inch. 
Agr.,  ix,  pp.  135,  230;  Inch.  Pari.,  vi!i,  p.  37,  and  vi‘,  pp.  157-165;  D.  Taruffi,  L. 
De  Nobili,  and  C.  Lori,  La  queslione  agraria  e V emigrazione  in  Calabria  (Florence, 
1908),  pp.  238-244;  A.  De  Viti  de  Marco,  Saggi  di  economia  efinanza  (Rome,  1898), 
pp.  173  ff.;  N.  R.  D’Alfonso,  “11  disboscamento  in  Calabria,”  Nnova  Antologia, 
October  16,  1913,  pp.  622-631;  V.  Perona,  “Le  foreste  nel  presente  e nell’  av- 
venire,”  L' Italia  Economica,  Anno  II  (1908),  pp.  90  f. 

2 A good  discussion  of  this  situation  is  in  T.  Fischer,  La  penisola  italiana  (Turin, 
1902),  pp.  47-51.  In  Inch.  Pari.,  vui,  Note  ed  appendici,  pp.  354  f.,  is  a discussion 
significantly  entitled  “ The  journeying  communes  ” (Basilicata). 


SOUTH  ITALY.  NATURE  AND  MAN 


57 


formation  of  the  country  predisposes  to  harm  and  intensifies  the 
evil  done.  It  is  a comparatively  short  course  which  the  streams 
must  traverse  from  mountain  altitudes  to  sea  level.  A hydro- 
graphic  map  of  South  Italy,  especially  of  Calabria,  shows  with 
what  economy  of  distance  they  flow  to  the  sea.  There  is  not 
much  winding  until  the  thin  margin  of  coastal  plain  is  reached; 
diffusion  of  drainage  is  secured  rather  by  multiplicity  of  independ- 
ent streams.  Evidently,  their  course  must  be  decidedly  pre- 
cipitous. Where  natural  conditions  imply  so  strong  a tendency  to 
rapid  erosion  and  torrential  flow,  the  removal  of  the  great  re- 
tainers of  the  soil  and  conservers  of  moisture  starts  havoc.  Broad 
inundations,  virtual  lakes,  abound  in  the  lower  courses.  In  1878, 
nearly  half  the  area  under  water  in  all  Italy  in  valleys  held  to  be 
deficient  in  drainage  was  in  Basilicata,  Calabria,  and  Campania.1 

“ Has  there  been  deforestation  ? ” the  investigators  of  a govern- 
ment commission  inquired,  a few  years  ago,  as  to  all  the  mountain 
communes  in  Calabria.  In  every  instance  the  reply  was  “yes”; 
often  further  “ completely  ” or  “ to  the  last  tree,”  or  “ as  if  with 
fire  and  sword.”  2 In  Basilicata  the  higher  mountains  are  in  part 
still  beautifully  wooded.  In  Sicily,  in  the  north  and  about  the 
shoulders  of  Etna,  there  is  splendid  growth.  Yet  even  the  exten- 
sive district  around  the  volcano  lost  two-thirds  of  its  mantle  in 
the  last  three-quarters  of  the  nineteenth  century.  And  the  whole 
mountainous  interior  of  Sicily,  except  where  the  grain  is  green  or 
gold,  is  a disheartening  picture  of  stark  bareness. 

What  of  the  streams  themselves  ? Many  pictures  have  been 
drawn  of  them.  The  lower  valley  of  the  Stilo  in  Calabria,  once 
very  fertile,  has  been  covered  with  gravel,  dry  and  naked  in  the 
summer,  showing  a few  scattered  orange  trees  “ left  over  as  docu- 
ments and  memories  of  former  prosperity,”  as  a writer  has  said, 
and  in  the  wet  season,  overflowing  with  tumultuous  waters. 
Dr.  Taruffi  has  told  of  the  immense  damage  done  by  two  Cala- 
brian streams  in  covering  fertile  farms  and  prosperous  orchards 
with  a solitude  of  gravel  and  sand.  An  official  statement  a few 
years  ago  held  that  in  Calabria  alone  there  were  ninety  streams 

1 Risultati  dell’  inchiesta  sidle  condizioni  igieniche,  etc.,  p.  48. 

2 Inch.  Pari.,  vH,  p.  204. 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


58 

whose  floods  regularly  damage  the  valleys  through  which  they 
flow.  When  the  prime  minister  Zanardelli  made  his  much  ac- 
claimed southern  journey,  he  said,  “ I travelled  for  days  through 
stretches  of  naked,  parched  mountains,  which  were  without  any 
cultivation,  and  had  scarcely  a blade  of  grass;  and  through  val- 
leys quite  as  unproductive.  For  hours  I saw  not  a single  house, 
and  I passed  from  the  desolate  silence  of  the  mountains  and  the 
valleys  to  the  malarial  plain  where  the  streams,  breaking  their 
banks,  drove  off  cultivation  and  spread  out  in  swamps;  and  I saw, 
for  example,  the  bed  of  the  Agri  coterminous  with  the  valley  of  the 
Agri  and  the  listless  water  with  hardly  a current  in  those  immense 
fields.”  1 

Such  are  the  fruits  of  unremitting  deforestation.  What  they 
mean  for  agriculture  can  be  briefly  told.  The  damage  wrought  by 
landslips  and  torrents  is  mainly  local;  it  is  their  number  and  the 
costliness  of  the  repairs  they  necessitate  that  make  them  serious.2 
Similarly  the  spreading  waters  of  the  lower  courses  are  grave 
because  general.  They  have  covered  over  the  most  fertile  lands 
of  the  country.  Cultivation  is  further  made  difficult  in  a de- 
forested region  because  the  rainfall  is  not  retained  in  the  soil,  and 
because  the  absence  of  trees  and  therefore  of  gradual  evaporation 
lessens  the  humidity  of  the  region.  The  hilly  deforested  country 
had  been  upon  a natural  margin  of  cultivation.  Washing  away  of 
the  soil  was  considerable  even  before  the  trees  were  felled;  with 
the  trees  gone  it  proceeded  at  a quicker  pace.  Accounts  agree 
that  the  cultivators  who  secured  these  lands  after  the  middle  of 
the  century  were  able  to  cultivate  them  profitably  for  only  a 
short  time.  “ After  a decade  of  such  exhaustive  cultivation,  and 
when  nothing  or  very  little  remained  of  the  primitive  covering  of 
plant-bearing  soil,  the  contadino,  who  beheld  his  labor  no  longer 
profitable,  promptly  abandoned  the  lot  assigned  to  him  in  the 

1 Cited  by  P.  Lacava,  “ Sulle  condizioni  economico-sociali  della  Basilicata,” 
Nuova  Antologia,  March  1, 1907,  p.  108.  The  Inchiesta  Agraria  held  that  the  lands  in 
Basilicata  permanently  under  stagnant  water  as  a result  of  deforestation  amounted 
to  10,000  hectares;  see  ix,  pp.  12,  18  (on  Sicily,  cf.  xiii',  fasc.  iii,  pp.  2 ff.,  571). 
See  also  Inch.  Pari.,  v"*,  p.  44;  Giglioli,  pp.  350  f.;  Area,  pp.  134  ff.;  Taruffi, 
P-  233- 

2 See,  for  the  province  of  Cosenza  alone,  Inch.  Pari.,  v",  p.  205. 


SOUTH  ITALY.  NATURE  AND  MAN 


59 


repartition.”  1 Referring  to  the  deeply  furrowed  hills  in  the  cen- 
tral part  of  the  South,  another  writer  says,  “ fifty  times  out  of  a 
hundred  these  lands  belonged  to  the  domain.”  2 

What  a curious  irony  there  was  in  the  mid-century  movement 
to  extend  cultivation ! With  the  decline  of  newly  cleared  places, 
and  their  abandonment,  came  the  decline,  by  gravel  deposits  and 
inundation,  of  many  fertile  lowlands,  and  their  abandonment. 

A scourge  has  ruled  in  South  Italy  from  immemorial  time,  sus- 
tained by  the  natural  conditions  of  soil  and  drainage,  aggravated 
by  the  consequences  of  deforestation.  This  scourge,  malaria, 
having  a particularly  virulent  form  in  the  South,  has  touched  or 
threatened  the  homes  of  millions.  Not  only  has  it,  in  a direct  way, 
hindered  the  daily  work  of  agriculture,  but  it  has  even  influenced 
the  very  form  of  agriculture.  It  stands  forth,  in  truth,  as  one  of 
the  prime  forces  that  have  made  for  emigration. 

Whatever  its  origins,3  there  appears  to  be  no  doubt  that  the 
area  subject  to  the  disease  in  South  Italy  has  substantially  in- 
creased since  antiquity,  and  notably  in  the  nineteenth  century  — - 
Metaponto,  Sibari,  and  Cotrone,  seats  of  the  splendor  of  Magna 
Graecia,  are  shunned  by  men  today.  In  order  to  flourish,  it  re- 
quires the  presence  of  stagnant  water.  With  six  months  of  heavy 
rains  and  six  of  almost  no  rain,  the  floods  produced  by  the  winter 
and  spring  torrents  only  gradually  vanish  in  the  dry  season.  In 
most  of  Sicily,  not  large  swamps  but  numerous  small  pools  are  the 
mainstay  of  the  disease.  By  the  increase  of  the  watery  area 
through  deforestation  in  the  nineteenth  century  malaria  has  been 
carried  into  regions  hitherto  immune,  and  elsewhere  its  ravages 
have  been  intensified.  After  i860  it  apparently  increased  in 
extraordinary  fashion. 

1 Podesta,  p.  183. 

2 A.  O.  Olivetti,  “ Lo  Stato  ed  il  rimboschimento,”  Riforma  Sociale,  September, 
1902,  p.  825.  Cf.  Inch.  Agr.,  ix,  p.  115;  Lacava,  “ La  Basilicata,”  p.  128. 

3 Upon  evidence  of  primitive  communities  in  regions  historically  known  to  be 
malarial,  Mosso  speculates  that  the  early  Sicilian  peoples  did  not  know  malaria; 
op.  cit.,  pp.  403  ff.  It  was  prevalent  in  Roman  times;  ibid.,  pp.  416  £E.;  Fischer, 
Penisola  italiana,  p.  355;  J.  J.  Blunt,  Vestiges  of  Ancient  Manners  and  Customs  dis- 
coverable in  Modern  Italy  and  Sicily  (London,  1823),  pp.  194  II.  On  a later  period, 
see  Salvioli,  Le  nostre  origini,  p.  106. 


6o 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


As  late  as  in  the  year  1887,  21,000  persons  died  of  malaria  in 
Italy.  Steadily  thereafter  the  number  declined,  till,  in  1912,  it 
but  little  exceeded  3100.  In  1902  illnesses  began  to  be  reported 
officially:  after  reaching  a high  point  of  323,000  in  1905,  they  have 
of  late  years  fallen  under  200,000.  As  a rule,  these  figures  for 
cases  of  illness  exceed  those  reported  for  any  other  infectious 
malady;  and  unquestionably  they  are  minima,  for  the  patient  can 
administer  quinine  without  recourse  to  a physician,  and  he  may  in 
many  instances  go  for  cure  to  the  unauthorized  physicians  who 
abound  in  the  less  advanced  regions.1 

Beyond  question,  Italy  has  been  the  most  malarial  country  of 
Europe;  and  within  its  borders  the  South  has  maintained  an 
unenviable  primacy.  Though  Lombardy  has  had,  among  north- 
ern compartments,  a wide  prevalence  of  the  disease,  the  deaths  in 
Basilicata  in  1901-05  averaged  fifty  times  as  many  in  proportion 
to  its  inhabitants  as  those  of  Lombardy.2  Malaria  abounds  in  the 
central  and  coast  regions  of  Basilicata  and  Calabria,  particularly 
where  the  gathered  waters  rest  upon  a substratum  of  clay.  In  the 
former  compartment  the  entire  littoral  zone  is  affected,  a region 
of  much  fertile  soil,  and  in  the  central  zone  the  disease  is  found  in 
every  commune.  The  heavy  migrations  in  the  harvest  season 
doubtless  have  helped  to  spread  it.  In  Sicily,  except  in  the  prov- 
ince of  Messina,  few  communes  are  devoid  of  malarial  spaces.3 

1 In  a statement  of  advice  issued  by  the  Minister  of  the  Interior  to  the  inhabit- 
ants in  malarial  sections,  avoidance  of  quack  physicians  is  explicitly  recommended. 
See  A.  Zambler,  Le  malattie  e gli  infortuni  del  lavoro  agricolo  (Casale  Monferrato, 
1908),  p.  115.  Zambler’s  entire  account  (pp.  94-115  and  Appendix)  is  useful. 

2 These  figures  ( Annuario  Statistico,  1905-07,  i,  pp.  186-189)  are  illustrative: 

Annual  Average  Number  of  Deaths  from  Malaria  per  100,000  Inhabitants 


1887-90 

1901-05 

Lombardy 

IO 

3 

Venetia 

IS 

S 

Basilicata 

187 

ISS 

Calabria 

69 

Catanzaro 

1S6 

92 

Sicily 

132 

69 

Caltanissetta 

56 

Girgenti 

202 

62 

Trapani 

233 

102 

Syracuse 

l66 

145 

3 See  Inch.  Pari.,  v',  pp.  60,  146,  149,  195,  224;  v!ii,  pp.  200  f.,  356-370;  vi1*, 
pp.  586-603,  624-631.  The  Inchiesla  sidle  condizioni  igieniche  (p.  clxxvii)  declared 
that  “ In  Liguria  there  is  not  a single  commune  at  all  seriously  exposed  to  malaria; 


SOUTH  ITALY.  NATURE  AND  MAN 


6l 


The  recent  extraordinary  decline  in  deaths  for  all  Italy  reflects 
the  equally  recent  abandonment  of  Hippocrates’  theory  of  a 
“ principle  of  malaria  floating  in  the  atmosphere  of  infected 
places,”  or  rather  reflects  the  discovery  that  this  “ principle  of 
fever  ” is  a germ  transmitted  by  the  anopheles  mosquito.1  Gratu- 
itous distribution  of  quinine  by  the  State  has  directly  made  for 
the  decline  in  deaths,2  and  a variety  of  precautionary  measures 
will  reduce  the  rate  still  further.  In  a discussion  of  the  causes  of 
emigration,  however,  the  more  significant  figures  are  those  of  the 
earlier  era;  and  the  evil  which  they  disclose  is  far-reaching. 

The  character  of  the  interference  of  malaria  with  agriculture  is 
not  found  in  the  number  of  deaths,  nor  even  in  the  far  greater 
number  of  cases  of  illness  reported.  The  many  attacks  and  the 
frequent  relapses  do  indeed  withhold  a great  deal  of  labor  from 
the  land;  and  anaemia,  following  the  fever,  reduces  the  quality  of 
much  other  labor.  Graver  even  than  these,  however,  is  the  nature 
of  the  precautions  which  from  time  immemorial  have  been  neces- 
sary to  escape  the  disease.3  The  peasant  may  not  live  upon  the 
field  he  cultivates.  Low-lying  land  is  at  once  the  most  fertile  and 
the  most  malarial.  Anopheles  bites  between  dusk  and  dawn. 
Hence  the  peasant  must  pass  his  night  on  the  higher  hills  and 
expend  time  and  energy  at  morning  and  evening  in  going  to  and 
from  his  work  — a distance  frequently  of  several  miles.  There  is 
no  precise  way  of  indicating  what  part  of  the  population  passes  its 
nights  in  non-malarial  places,  but  the  census  statistics  of  “agglom- 
erated population  ” come  near  to  doing  so.  They  show,  paradoxi- 

in  Piedmont  the  communes  are  17  per  cent,  in  Tuscany  19,  in  the  Marches  10,  in 
Emilia  22;  and  by  contrast  they  are  in  Apulia  75  per  cent,  in  Sicily  74,  in  Sardinia 
68,  in  Latium  66,  in  Basilicata  62,  in  Calabria  63.”  These  figures  do  not  pretend 
to  close  accuracy.  Valuable  studies  have  been  published  in  the  annual  Atti  della 
Socield  per  gli  Studi  della  Malaria  (Rome);  see,  e.g.,  L.  Manfredi  and  others,  “Se- 
condo  contributo  alio  studio  della  malaria  in  Sicilia,”  v (1904),  pp.  819-847;  and  F. 
Martirano,  “La  malaria  nel  Mezzogiorno  dTtalia,”  iv  (1903),  pp.  440-468. 

1 See  the  interesting  old-fashioned  account  of  L.  Simond,  A T our  in  Italy  and 
Sicily  (London,  1828),  p.  357. 

2 Ministero  delle  Finanze,  II  chinino  dello  stato  da  sue  origini  ad  oggi,  Turin,  1911. 

3 Such  precautions  have  recently  increased;  for  a description  see  A.  Celli,  Ma- 
laria (London,  1901),  Part  II. 


62 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


cally,  that  the  South,  though  it  is  emphatically  the  non-industrial 
region  of  Italy,  contains  a larger  portion  of  people  living  in  towns 
than  does  any  other  part: 1 

Percentage  or  Population  Residing 

In  centers  of  500  In  centers  of  less 
or  more  inhabitants  than  500  inhabitants  Scattered  on  the  land 


1882  1901  1882  1901  1871  1882  1901 

Basilicata 92.4  90.3  0.8  1.2  1 f 6.8  8.5 

Calabria 79.4  76.9  7.0  5.8  J 11-7  \ 13.6  17.3 

Sicily 89.9  88.0  1.8  1.3  6.8  8.3  10.8 

All  Italy 62.1  63.3  10.6  8.5  26.0  27.3  28.2 


Expenditure  of  time  and  effort  in  a region  where  these  are  cheap 
is  in  turn,  however,  not  the  most  serious  consequence  of  malaria. 
Rather,  the  very  cheapness  of  time  and  effort  itself  partly  pro- 
ceeds from  the  menace  of  the  disease.  Intensive  agriculture,  the 
form  natural  in  a populous  region,  cannot  well  develop  where  the 
cultivators  must  march  far  to  their  work.  That  is  the  crux  of 
the  problem.  The  tentative  erection  of  farmhouses  has  in  many 
places  failed  because  malaria  has  afflicted  the  occupants.  It 
appears,  in  other  words,  that  this  malady,  placing  a great  pre- 
mium upon  extensive  cultivation,  has  in  some  measure  been 
responsible  for  the  persistence  of  the  latifundium2  and  so  also  for 
the  considerable  degree  of  insecurity  which  still  reigns  in  the  rural 
districts  of  South  Italy.  That  is,  it  partly  explains  the  long  his- 
tory of  brigandage,  which  has  only  come  to  an  end  in  recent  times, 
the  field  robberies  which  continue  to  be  a curse  throughout  the 
South  and  Sicily,  the  murders  in  the  open  country  which  give  to 
Sicily  a position  unique  in  civilized  countries;  and  it  partly  ex- 
plains why  today  one  may  see  the  contadini  marching  to  their 
work  with  rifles  on  their  shoulders. 

1 See  Censimento,  igoi,  v,  p.  62,  and  Annuario  Stalistico,  1881,  p.  89.  Cf.  the 
description  of  Sicily  in  Inch.  Agr.,  xiii1,  fasc.  iii,  pp.  13-21. 

2 Cf.  Taruffi,  pp.  258,  314;  Inch.  Agr.,  xv,  p.  58;  F.  Maggiore-Pemi,  Delle 
condizioni  economiche,  politiche  e morali  della  Sicilia  dopo  il  i860  (Palermo,  1896), 
p.  38. 

Castrovillari  and  Rossano  are  circondarii  in  which  the  latifundium  predominates; 
the  percentages  of  agglomerated  population  are  93  and  99.15;  they  are  the  most 
malarial  circondarii  of  Calabria  and  the  only  ones  in  that  compartment  that  de- 
creased in  population  in  1882-1901.  See  Taruffi,  pp.  84,  89,  313. 


SOUTH  ITALY.  NATURE  AND  MAN  63 

What  the  torrential  rains  have  wrought,  and  the  devastating 
fever,  has  been  by  gradual  process,  day  by  day  and  year  after 
year.  Though  the  sum  of  loss  from  these  agencies  is  great  there  is 
even  something  calculable  in  the  risk  of  loss  which  they  impose. 
How  different  is  the  case  with  earthquakes ! Looking  back  over 
eight  or  nine  centuries,  the  historian  can  indeed  count  them  with 
some  exactness,  but  the  time  of  their  appearance  and  their  magni- 
tude have  so  far  eluded  prophecy.  It  is  these  uncertainties  that 
have  rendered  of  so  slight  avail  the  generalization  that  certain 
broad  regions  are  particularly  subject  to  them.  To  indicate  (by 
way  of  example)  the  recent  earthquakes  of  Calabria  alone:  those 
of  1854,  1870,  1894,  1905,  1907  and,  worst  of  all,  1908,  accom- 
plished a disheartening  round  of  destruction  of  life  and  property. 
Today,  ten  years  after  the  demolition  of  Messina,  the  city,  its 
little  wooden  suburb  notwithstanding,  still  is  a pile  of  ruins. 

Disaster  to  the  crop  of  a single  season  is  of  course  the  least 
important  effect  of  earthquakes  upon  economic  activities.  The 
general  destruction  of  capital  is  pervasive.1  Of  all  consequences 
however  the  most  serious  is  probably  psychological,  the  creation 
of  a mood  of  helplessness,  or  even  worse,  of  apathy,  restraining  at 
once  the  impulse  to  progress  and  the  energies  needed  for  ac- 
complishment. 

1 A summary  account,  by  Professor  G.  Mercalli,  of  the  earthquakes  of  recent 
centuries  is  in  Inch.  Pari.,  vm,  pp.  30-32.  Evidence  of  the  destructiveness  of  the 
earthquake  of  1908  may  be  found  in  Ministero  dei  Lavori  Pubblici,  L’opera  del 
Ministero  dei  Lavori  Pubblici  nei  comuni  colpiti  dal  terremolo  del  28  dicembre  igo8, 
(Rome,  1912),  3 vols.,  especially  vol.  i.  See  also  A.  Caputo,  “ I disastri  del  mezzo- 
giomo  e i mezzi  per  ripararli  ” in  Giornale  degli  Economisti,  September,  1910, 
pp.  259-280. 


CHAPTER  V 


SOUTH  ITALY.  II.  THE  AGRICULTURAL  SYSTEM 

We  have  dealt  thus  far  with  difficulties  or  adversities  originating 
in  nature,  but  intensified  at  one  point  or  another  by  the  action  of 
man.  They  are  barriers  which  lie  athwart  the  way  to  a success- 
ful agriculture;  formidable,  yet  neither  wholly  irremovable  nor 
wholly  insurmountable.  We  have  still  before  us  the  heart  of  our 
problem.  Nothing  less  than  a broad  examination  of  the  agri- 
cultural system,  of  the  division  of  land  ownership,  the  forms  of 
agrarian  contract,  and  the  relation  of  these  to  output  and  to  the 
incomes  and  living  of  the  people  can  discover  the  forces  that 
depress  and  constrict  the  country.  Such  an  examination  cannot 
be  brief.  Resting  inevitably  upon  an  understanding  of  certain 
historical  vicissitudes,  it  must  follow  a train  of  causes  to  their 
final  expression  in  the  fives  of  the  people. 

Although  few  countries  have  had  so  changeful  a political  his- 
tory as  the  south  of  Italy,  its  agricultural  annals  have  exhibited 
little  variety.  The  Saracens  introduced  some  important  new 
plants.  The  establishment  of  feudalism  by  the  Normans,  and  not 
infrequent  shiftings  of  jurisdiction  or  ownership  of  large  proper- 
ties by  towns,  barons,  and  the  Church,  were  movements  primarily 
of  significance  for  the  political  state.  No  agricultural  revolution 
took  place.  Growth  of  population,  though  it  extended  the  margin 
of  cultivation  by  driving  back  the  forest  fine,  brought  no  innova- 
tions in  technique.  While  important  changes  in  the  condition  of 
the  cultivators  can  be  traced  — notably  the  development  of  serf- 
dom into  villeinage  and  the  decline  of  the  latter  — the  passing 
centuries  left  unchanged  the  essentials  of  the  ancient  agricultural 
economy:  the  large  estate,  extensive  cultivation,  and  the  instru- 
ments and  practices  which  today  we  call  primitive. 

64 


SOUTH  ITALY.  AGRICULTURAL  SYSTEM 


65 


I 

Not  indefinitely  could  a country,  situated  as  Italy  is  in  Europe, 
expect  to  retain  an  agriculture  of  this  description  and  also  support 
a large  population. 

Even  in  the  eighteenth  century  steps  began  to  be  taken  which, 
if  well  directed,  might  have  led  to  an  increase  in  the  number  of 
proprietors:  Charles  III  and  Ferdinand  IV  suppressed  many 
monasteries  and  transferred  their  lands  to  the  public  domain.  In 
1809  Murat,  having  already  begun  to  sell  some  Church  estates, 
annulled  ecclesiastical  titles  to  land ; but  the  restored  government 
forbade  further  sales.1 

With  the  abolition  of  feudalism,  a truly  magnificent  oppor- 
tunity was  opened,  for  the  communes  agreed  to  divide  their  newly 
gained  lands  into  lots  and  grant  them  to  the  people,  especially  the 
poor.  But  under  the  Bourbons,  partly  because  they  were  re- 
actionary, partly  because  litigation  regarding  rival  claims  was 
incessant,  the  distribution  followed  an  uneven  course.  By  fraud, 
it  is  alleged,  much  of  the  acreage  was  acquired  by  the  greater  pro- 
prietors. And  what  the  poor  received  was  soon,  because  they 
lacked  capital,  sold  to  creditors  or  seized  for  failure  to  pay  taxes. 
One  consequence  of  the  abolition  of  feudalism  had  been  to  make 
the  lands  the  barons  retained  alienable,  so  that  many  barons 
found  themselves  at  the  mercy  of  their  creditors.  Yet  what  lands 
they  were  forced  to  sell  did  not,  it  is  said,  come  into  the  hands  of 
the  poor.  In  sum  — for  no  other  conclusion  is  possible  — the 
abolition  of  feudalism,  considered  as  a device  for  extending  the 
ownership  of  the  land  among  persons  of  small  means,  was  an 
almost  unqualified  failure.2 

Later,  we  have  seen,  came  the  comprehensive  distribution  of 
the  lands  of  the  Church.  What  was  its  issue  ? Consider  first  the 

1 P.  Colletta,  History  of  the  Kingdom  of  Naples,  1734-1825  (trans.,  2 vols.,  Edin- 
burgh, 1858),  i,  pp.  40  f.;  Bianchini,  pp.  407,  409. 

2 On  the  history  of  the  changes  in  ownership  of  the  former  feudal  lands,  see 
Franchetti  in  L.  Franchetti  and  S.  Sonnino,  La  Sicilia  nel  1876  (2  vols.,  Florence, 
1877),  i,  ch.  ii,  p.  115  (cf.  Coppi,  iii,  p.  269),  and  Sonnino,  ii,  p.  290;  Inch.  Agr., 
ix,  PP-  57>  io5>  1 14  f- ; Ciolfi,  ch.  vi,  esp.  pp.  81-89;  Area,  p.  107. 


66 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


law  of  1862  for  Sicily,  providing  that  the  lands  should  be  given  in 
perpetual  emphyteuses,  redeemable  by  the  tenants.  The  estates 
of  1440  ecclesiastical  proprietors  — ■ forty  of  whom  owned  two- 
thirds  of  the  entire  amount  — were  broken  into  more  than  20,000 
lots,  generally  about  ten  hectares  in  extent.  These  lots  were 
leased  at  auction  for  a sum  much  above  their  former  rental  and 
upon  terms  that  required  that  if  ever  the  rent  payment  were  in 
default  for  three  months,  the  properties  must  revert  to  the  State. 
Within  eight  years  all  the  lands  were  distributed.  To  whom  ? 
In  the  first  instance,  certainly,  to  many  poor  persons,  most  of 
whom  — by  no  means  all  — were  agriculturists.  But  men  who 
were  not  agriculturists  and  who  already  were  proprietors  of  lands 
— in  other  words,  many  persons  well  off  — made  up  nearly  half 
of  the  lessees  and  their  lots  were  worth  nearly  two-thirds  of  the 
total  amount.  It  soon  developed  that  many  tenants  were  forced 
to  renounce  their  lots  and  that  others  were  prevented  from  be- 
coming owners  in  full,  because  the  clergy  threatened  excommuni- 
cation or  demanded  fees  for  permitting  the  transaction.  Upon 
the  final  outcome  Baron  Sonnino  wrote,  in  his  classic  volume, 

We  travelled  through  the  principal  communes  of  the  various  provinces  of 
Sicily,  interrogating  and  observing.  We  have  a large  number  of  reports  from 
places  whither  it  was  impossible  for  us  to  go.  Everywhere  there  was  only 
one  response:  The  ecclesiastical  lands  fell  almost  exclusively,  and  with  the 
rarest  exceptions,  into  the  hands  of  proprietors  in  easy  circumstances,  for 
the  most  part  the  great  proprietors;  and  this  especially  in  those  regions 
where  the  properties  were  least  divided,  and  where  therefore  it  was  the  more 
urgent  that  a division  should  take  place.1 

Social  motives,  thwarted  by  the  outcome,  inspired  the  em- 
phyteusis law.  Though  such  motives  were  important  in  the  laws 
of  1865  and  thereafter,  which  suppressed  the  religious  corpora- 

1 Sonnino,  ii,  p.  286.  That  the  result  could  not  be  diSerent  was  due  largely  to 
an  organized  efWt  on  the  part  of  the  wealthy  persons  at  the  auctions  to  secure  the 
lands  for  themselves  (pp.  286  t.).  Six  years  later  than  Sonnino,  the  Inchiesta 
Agraria  made  its  study.  A search  in  the  volume  (xiii'’,  fasc.  iv)  devoted  to  a de- 
tailed view  of  the  Sicilian  circondarii  discovers  the  following  pages  where  it  is  de- 
clared that  the  lands  wTent  to  large  holders:  pp.  46,  55,  67,  122,  133,  142,  161,  191, 
226,  235,  249,  262,  279,  302,  330,  348.  More  favorable  are  these:  pp.  91,  182,  201, 
235,  292,  310,  322,  339.  See  also  xiii',  fasc.  i,  p.  85  and  fasc.  iii,  p.  574-  Cf.  “Di  ta- 
luni  effetti,”  pp.  187,  190. 


SOUTH  ITALY.  AGRICULTURAL  SYSTEM  6j 

tions,  the  primary  intention  of  these  was  fiscal.  The  lands  were 
to  be  broken  into  small  lots  and  sold  at  auction.  Bids  were  re- 
stricted to  persons  who  deposited  in  advance  one-tenth  of  the 
auction  minimum.  This  amount  had  to  be  increased  within  ten 
days  to  a tenth  of  the  purchase  price,  and  sundry  fees  added;  the 
other  nine-tenths  were  to  be  paid  in  annual  instalments  in  eight- 
een years  with  interest  at  six  per  cent.  For  a cash  payment  in 
full,  seven  per  cent  was  deducted  from  the  selling  price.  Finally, 
the  ecclesiastical  bonds  issued  by  the  Treasury  were  accepted  in 
lieu  of  cash,  and  they  could  be  bought  at  about  four-fifths  of  their 
par  value.1 

Here  was  an  invitation  to  the  rich  and  a relative  penalty  upon 
the  poor.  Does  it  matter  that  no  statistics  of  buyers  are  to  be 
had  ? Add  to  this  discrimination  of  the  classes  the  promise  of 
divine  punishments  for  whoever  should  acquire  the  Church  lands 
and  the  low  intellectual  conditions  prevalent  in  just  those  regions 
where  the  lands  to  be  sold  were  most  plentiful,  and  then  it  is  clear 
that  the  poor  could  not,  in  large  numbers,  have  participated  in  the 
auctions.  The  price  secured  for  each  hectare,  it  should  be  noted, 
was  nearly  a thousand  lire  during  the  years  when  most  lots  were 
sold.  “ But  this  was  a matter  of  the  early  days,  of  the  better 
lands,  of  the  time  when  men  thought  that  buying  lots  which  they 
could  pay  for  during  eighteen  years  at  six  per  cent  interest  would 
open  the  way  to  a fortune.”  2 

It  is  probable  that  lands  were  bought  speculatively  for  cash 
and  then  sold  to  persons  of  smaller  means  who  had  been  deterred 
from  outright  purchases.  Though  the  matter  is  still  obscure,  it 
appears  that  a not  inconsiderable  acreage  came  early  into  the 
hands  of  moderate  buyers  who  were  later  forced  to  sell  to  escape 
the  burden  of  interest  charges  or  taxes.  Especially  as  agricultural 
prices  declined,  it  became  more  difficult  than  it  had  been  to  pay 
charges,  and  after  a while  only  the  well-to-do  few  remained  upon 
the  field.3 

1 Bertozzi,  pp.  56  ff.  2 “ Di  taluni  effetti,”  p.  200;  see  also  p.  150. 

3 The  Inch.  Agr.  frequently  but  in  insufficient  detail  noted  the  consequences  of 
the  sales  of  ecclesiastical  lands.  Only  “ the  least  part,”  it  reported  for  Basilicata, 
remained  in  the  hands  of  the  buyers  (ix,  p.  57).  In  Catanzaro,  the  evil  of  very  great 
estates  ( grandissimi  latifondi)  was  not  corrected,  because  the  lands  were  sold  mainly 


68 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


The  last  word  upon  the  distribution  of  the  immense  lay  and 
ecclesiastical  estates  in  South  Italy  and  Sicily  during  the  nine- 
teenth century  is  inevitably  that  a great  opportunity  was  lost. 
At  most  some  broadening  of  ownership  followed,  but  even  that  is 
doubtful.  The  great  properties  remained  great  properties  as  they 
had  been  in  the  Middle  Ages  and  in  ancient  times.  In  a region 
where  agriculture  was  the  paramount  source  of  wealth,  the  mere 
possession  of  a large  estate  continued  to  supply  an  all-sufficient 
income  to  the  possessor. 

While  these  momentous  experiments  were  running  their  course, 
another  force  was  quietly  but  insistently  giving  a special  char- 
acter to  the  proprietorship  of  land.  As  a consequence  of  the  suc- 
cession provisions  of  the  Civil  Code,  a parcelling  or  splitting  up  of 
land  — frazionamento  in  the  expressive  Italian  word  — was  tak- 
ing place.  Only  half  of  the  testator’s  property  must  be  equally 
divided  among  his  children,  but  in  practice  all  is  so  divided.  Grave 
consequences  have  followed.  Many  properties  are  economically 
indivisible;  many  others  might  be  economically  divided  but  are 
so  apportioned  as  to  give  to  each  heir,  particularly  in  the  case  of 
the  small  estates,  an  equal  share  of  each  kind  of  land.  Excessive 
division  is  commoner  in  some  other  parts  of  Italy  than  in  the 
South  and  in  Sicily,  but  it  everywhere  necessitates  awkward 
cultivation  of  scattered  or  minute  holdings.  To  remedy  the  situa- 
tion, which  is  particularly  bad  in  Basilicata,  no  systematic  effort 
has  been  made;  but  some  proprietors  have  sold  lots  inconven- 
iently located  and  bought  adjacent  ones.1 

in  large  lots  and  because  smaller  buyers  were  unable  to  retain  their  holdings  for 
lack  of  capital  (pp.  203,  205).  In  Reggio  and  also  in  Cosenza,  “ all  the  property 
became  concentrated  in  the  hands  of  a few  powerful  families  ” (pp.  114  f.,  315). 
The  report  generally  relates  under  one  caption  the  effects  of  the  distribution  of 
ecclesiastical  and  the  older  domain  lands.  Though  this  sometimes  sacrifices  definite- 
ness, it  is  not  entirely  to  be  regretted.  More  expressly  it  was  indicated  that  in  the 
provinces  of  Catania  and  Syracuse,  in  the  eighteen  years  in  which  payments  were  to 
be  made,  lands  were  “frequently  put  up  at  auction  again  for  failure  to  fulfill  the 
instalment  obligations”  (xiii‘,  fasc.  iii,  p.  572).  By  a study  of  tax  lists,  the  author 
of  the  official  article,  “Di  taluni  effetti”  (p.  202)  supports  his  opinion  that  the 
ecclesiastical  lands  were  mainly  bought  by  persons  who  already  owned  landed 
estates.  Cf.  also  the  Final  Report  of  Inch.  Agr.,  xv,  pp.  53  ff. 

1 See  G.  Bianchi,  La  proprield  fondiaria  e le  classi  rurali  (Pisa,  1891),  ch.  v,  and 
many  passages  in  Inch.  Pari. 


SOUTH  ITALY.  AGRICULTURAL  SYSTEM 


69 

Have  not  the  inheritance  laws  effectively  broken  the  great 
estates  ? On  the  contrary,  the  estates  have  rather  increased  than 
decreased;  and  this  for  several  reasons.  Malarial  conditions  and 
the  scarcity  of  water  have  tended  to  preserve  or  to  restore  them  in 
many  districts.  In  others,  notably  in  Calabria,  it  has  long  been 
customary  to  marry  only  one  son  in  the  richer  families.1  In  Basili- 
cata the  large  proprietors  have  generally  bequeathed  no  land  to 
their  daughters,  and  in  Calabria  many  have  followed  the  same 
rule.  In  Sicily,  lastly,  subdivision  upon  inheritance  has  been 
rare.2 

Both  combination  and  subdivision  of  lands  there  has  been 
then  — such  is  the  burden  of  this  chapter.  Is  the  net  result, 
when  one  considers  all  sizes  of  estates,  an  increase  or  a decrease  of 
proprietors  ? In  each  one  thousand  inhabitants  the  landed 
proprietors  numbered 

In  1882  In  1901 


In  Basilicata 168  159 

In  Calabria 121  91 

In  Sicily 114  94 


and  the  decrease,  as  it  happens,  has  been  not  merely  relative  but 
absolute.  Had  persons  of  small  means  acquired  parts  of  large 
estates,  or  had  there  been  much  breaking  up  by  inheritance,  an 
enhancement  of  the  figures  would  have  appeared.  As  it  is,  they 
seem  to  sustain  the  common  opinion  that  small  estates  have  been 
combined  into  larger  ones  faster  than  large  ones  have  been  split 
into  small.3 

One  of  the  fundamental  questions  to  be  asked  about  any  agri- 
cultural system  is,  How  far  is  the  land  cultivated  by  its  owners  ? 

1 The  Inch.  Agr.  (ix,  p.  xxvi)  still  called  this  an  “unaltered  custom.”  L.  A. 
Caputo  declares  the  custom  to  be  very  recently  declining;  see  his  essay  “ Di  alcune 
questioni  economiche  della  Calabria,”  in  Giornale  degli  Economisti  (December, 
1907,  and  March,  1908),  p.  1179.  Cf.,  however,  Inch.  Pari.,  vii!,  p.  126. 

Ibid.,v' ,p.  105;  vi‘, p.114;  v!i,pp.  25of.;  vii!, p.126.  Yet  Lorenzoni  believes 
that  in  Sicily  there  has  been,  for  whatever  reason,  an  appreciable  break-up  of  the 
larger  estates,  but  he  cannot  say  how  much  (ibid.,  pp.  2.36  ff.). 

3 The  first  two  censuses  were  silent  on  the  subject  of  ownership,  and  I have 
found  no  figures  in  the  volumes  so  far  published  of  the  fifth.  For  the  figures  in  the 
text,  see  Censimento,  ipoi,  v,  p.  162. 


70 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


For  South  Italy  the  answer,  if  we  are  to  grasp  its  full  import, 
sends  us  back  again  into  earlier  times.  How  very  heavily,  in  this 
matter,  the  hand  of  the  past  weighs ! 

During  the  Middle  Ages  and  before  the  rise  of  the  towns,  the 
lords  generally  lived  upon  their  estates.  Even  after  the  rise  of 
towns  the  need  of  defense  in  a region  where  insecurity  reigned 
kept  them  upon  their  lands.  Most  potent  cause  of  all  was,  how- 
ever, the  generally  exalted  position  of  the  feudal  lord  in  the  society 
of  a time  when  towns  were  unimportant  or  mostly  under  feudal 
jurisdiction,  and  when  the  royal  power  was  content  or  was  con- 
strained to  play  a small  role  in  internal  affairs.1  It  was  the  grad- 
ual encroachment  of  the  royal  power,  the  desire  of  the  kings  to 
count  as  the  first  might  in  the  land,  that  changed  the  relation  of 
the  lord  to  his  estate.  To  enfeeble  the  barons,  to  detach  them 
from  their  abodes  and  bring  them  to  Naples,  the  Bourbons  re- 
sorted to  such  blandishments,  such  profusion  of  royal  honors,  that 
the  barons  forgot  the  humbler  autonomy  which  they  possessed  on 
their  estates  and  grew  accustomed  to  live  as  subjects.  The  gayety 
of  the  life  of  the  capital,  music,  dancing,  spectacle,  gambling, 
luxurious  palaces,  made  attraction  easy.  This  defection  of  the 
richer  lords  had  the  great  disadvantage  of  rendering  them  careless 
of  agricultural  interests,  over  which  — - however  occupied  they  had 
been  with  the  general  tasks  of  administration  and  justice  — - they 
had  at  least  exercised  supervision.  Henceforth  these  interests 
remained  in  the  charge  of  avid  factors  or  simple  contadini.  The 
latter,  through  ignorance  or  the  lack  of  capital,  the  former  in  order 
to  grow  rich  quickly  at  the  expense  of  proprietors  and  lesser 
tenants,  far  from  proceeding  to  refresh  the  soil  sought  instead  to 
exhaust  it.  To  appreciate  the  breadth  of  the  damage,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  recall  that  it  was  a time  when  the  nobles,  the  domain,  and 
the  religious  corporations  held  most  of  the  land.2 

1 When  the  Bourbon  Charles  ascended  the  throne,  the  communes  subject  to 
him  contained  less  than  a third  as  many  inhabitants  as  those  subject  to  the 
lords. 

2 R.  De  Cesare,  La  fine  di  un  regno  (3  vols.,  Citta  di  Castello,  1909),  ii,  pp.  nof., 
x 1 5 ; M.  Schipa,  II  regno  di  Napoli  al  tempo  di  Carlo  di  Borbone  (Naples,  1904), 
p.  661.  A good  general  statement  is  in  Inch.  Agr.,  vii,  p.  217.  Cf.  Salvioli,  Trattato, 
p.  320;  idem,  “ 11  villanaggio  in  Sicilia  e la  sua  abolizione,”  Rivista  Ilaliana  di 


SOUTH  ITALY.  AGRICULTURAL  SYSTEM 


7 1 


Absenteeism,  though  it  did  not  begin  under  Bourbon  rule  — 
some  Spanish  lords,  for  example,  went  to  Spain  when  the  Spanish 
dominion  fell  — increased  greatly  in  extent  under  that  rule.  In 
the  nineteenth  century,  with  the  expanding  attractiveness  of  city 
life,  it  increased  further.  How  far  has  it  gone  ? 


Here  are  some  figures  of  great  interest  prepared  for  the  census 
of  1901 : 1 


Persons  who  cultivate,  or  manage  the 

Basilicata 

Calabria 

Sicily 

All  Italy 

cultivation  of,  their  own  properties 

48,813 

71,114 

114,091 

2,583,49° 

Absentee  landlords 

29,064 

53,437 

218,753 

703,201 

They  show  that  actually  three-eighths  of  the  landlords  of  Basili- 
cata, two-fifths  of  those  of  Calabria,  and  even  two-thirds  of  those 
of  Sicily  were  to  be  classed  as  absentee.  It  is  true  that  the  pro- 
prietors of  uncultivated  lands  were  included  in  these  figures,  but 
their  number  is  not  great.  The  habit  of  living  apart  from  one’s 
estates  has  continued  to  be  very  common  in  Italy,  and,  relatively 
speaking,  to  be  from  two  to  three  times  as  prevalent  in  the  South 
alone  as  in  the  entire  country. 

On  the  more  significant  question  of  what  proportion  of  the  land 
is  held  by  absent  proprietors,  no  such  precise  information  is  to  be 
had.  In  each  compartment  the  experts  of  the  Inchiesta  Agraria 
sought  an  answer,  and  the  drift  of  their  reports  is  unmistakable. 
At  the  utmost  they  conceded  that  “ few  ” large  proprietors  lived 
on  their  estates,  or  that  “some”  stayed  there  during  certain 
months,  or  that  they  went  there  for  villeggiatura.  In  other  words 
the  portion  of  the  land  held  by  the  absentee  owners  must  have 

Sociologia,  July-August,  1902,  pp.  394  ff.;  Colletta,  ii,  p.  39.  An  excellent  sum- 
mary is  in  A.  Sartorius  Frh.  v.  Waltershausen,  Die  Sizilianische  Agrarverfassung 
und  ihre  Wandlungen  1780-1912  (Leipsig,  1913),  ch.  v. 

1 Censimento,  1901,  v,  pp.  cxxi,  135.  Domain  lands  and  the  lands  of  companies 
do  not  appear  in  the  figures.  Owners  of  uncultivated  lands  do,  but  their  number  is 
not  great.  A criticism  may  be  brought  against  the  method  by  which  the  figures  for 
fondi  rustici  were  compiled  by  the  census  officials.  There  were  added  together  the 
number  of  persons  who  owned  lands  only  and  the  number  of  those  who  owned  lands 
and  buildings.  Those  who  possessed  buildings  only  were  regarded  as  essentially 
urban  and  were  excluded.  This  somewhat  exaggerates  the  number  of  owners  of 
rural  property;  but  in  the  light  of  the  Southern  tendency  to  live  in  towns  it  only 
slightly  distorts  the  picture  for  the  South.  For  other  parts  of  Italy  it  makes  absen- 
teeism appear  greater  than  it  is. 


72 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


been  very  great.1  Twenty-five  years  later,  the  testimony  of  the 
Inchiesta  Parlamentare  revealed  an  unchanged  situation.  Let  but 
one  citation  suffice  (the  reference  is  to  Calabria)  : 

The  great  proprietors  are  as  a rule  absentee.  Those  of  the  coast  zone, 
with  its  extensive  cultivation,  the  rich  — the  true  great  proprietors  — often 
live  very  far  from  their  lands,  almost  never  seeing  them.  Those  of  the  hill 
zone  are  likewise  absentee,  but  their  incomes  will  not  let  them  quit  the  capital 
of  the  province  or  the  circuit;  yet  from  the  agricultural  point  of  view  it  is  as 
if  they  lived  at  the  other  end  of  the  world,  for  they  behold  their  lands  only 
once  or  twice  a year.2 

Absenteeism  implies  cultivation  by  either  an  agent  or  a tenant, 
commonly  the  latter.  One  of  the  first  results  of  the  extensive 
absenteeism  which  appeared  after  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century  was  the  rise  of  the  Sicilian  gabella,  a lease  of  the  large 
estate,  and  of  the  gabellotto,  the  great  leaseholder,  one  of  the 
strangest  types  which  Italian  agricultural  history  has  developed. 
“There  had  grown  up,”  writes  Salvioli,3  “a  class  of  middle-class 
persons  enriched  in  the  grain  trade  and  in  usury,  cornerers  of 
products  (despite  the  terrible  laws  which  promised  the  galley  or 
the  gallows),  speculators  in  great  herds,  secret  purchasers  of  stolen 
farm  animals,  persons  who  had  not  hitherto  been  very  close  to  the 

1 On  Basilicata  and  Calabria  see  Inch.  Agr.,  ix,  pp.  xiv,  57,  116,  208;  on  Sicily, 
xiii',  fasc.  i,  p.  183,  xiiiHi,  fasc.  i,  p.  570.  A search  through  the  volume  (xiii!i,  fasc. 
iv)  which  deals  in  detail  with  the  several  Sicilian  provinces  reveals  an  extraordinary 
situation.  The  larger  proprietors  were  declared  never  to  live  on  their  estates,  or 
at  most  to  visit  them  rarely,  in  the  following  passages  (each  page  refers  to  a differ- 
ent region  of  the  province):  Caltanissetta,  pp.  13,  19,  26;  Catania,  pp.  47,  56,  67, 
80,  92;  Girgenti,  pp.  116,  123,  134,  143;  Messina,  pp.  171,  182,  192;  Palermo,  pp. 
216,  227,  236,  263;  Syracuse,  pp.  280,  293,  311;  Trapani,  pp.  322,  331,  339.  On 
pp.  201,  302,  and  349  more  favorable  reports  appear;  on  p.  161  is  noted  an  increas- 
ing tendency  “ in  the  last  twenty  years  ” to  live  on  the  estates.  Probably  the  situ- 
ation in  the  other  compartments,  for  which  less  detailed  studies  were  reported,  was 
similar.  Cf.  also  Bianchini,  ch.  vii;  G.  Alongi,  La  maffia,  nei  suoi  faitori  e nelle  sue 
manij 'estazioni  (Rome,  1886),  pp.  22,  27;  A.  Battaglia,  L’evoluzione  sociale  in  rap- 
porto  alia  proprietd  fondiaria  in  Sicilia  (Palermo,  1895),  p.  181. 

2 Inch.  Pari.,  vu,  p.  182.  Cf.  Taruffi,  pp.  368  f.  Out  of  a large  portion  of  the 
latifondi  of  Sicily  reported  to  Lorenzoni,  five-eighths  were  cultivated  by  contract. 
On  the  basis  of  tax  lists,  he  shows  that  less  than  eight  hundred  proprietors  own 
one-third  of  the  area  of  Sicily,  and  less  than  two  hundred  own  one-sixth;  two-fifths 
of  the  area  of  Caltanissetta  is  in  latifondi  of  200  hectares  or  more.  It  is  generally 
the  proprietors  of  such  estates  who  are  absent.  See  Inch.  Pari.,  vi!,  pp.  352,  362. 

3 “II  viOanaggio,”  etc.,  p.  395. 


SOUTH  ITALY.  AGRICULTURAL  SYSTEM 


73 


land.”  Not  essentially  different  is  Alongi’s  description.  The 
great  leaseholders  were  a kind  of  parvenu,  he  says,  who  aspired 
to  be  in  the  class  of  the  born  aristocracy.  “ The  nobles,  grown 
unfit  for  the  exacting  contests  of  labor  and  trade,  were  con- 
strained to  negotiate  with  these  newcomers,  who  were  energetic, 
audacious  characters  and  masters  of  that  robber  class  from  which 
they  had  sprung  and  which  even  then  were  called  mafia.”1 

The  gabellotto  paid  a fixed  rent  for  the  estate  which  he  took 
over  for  a period  of  only  a few  years  (six  came  to  be  the  general 
term).  Not  an  ultimate  large  product,  but  an  immediate  large 
net  return  was  his  aim;  not  organization  of  production,  but  a 
good  bargain  with  the  producers.  He  was,  in  other  words,  not  an 
entrepreneur,  but  a speculator;  or  as  Alongi  adjudged  him,  a 
parasite.  And  somewhat  a parasite  — if  we  may  now  describe 
him  in  the  present  — he  remains.  Sicily,  with  its  large  estates, 
Sicily  of  the  absent  landlords,  still  offers  a field  for  his  operations. 
It  is  true  that  he  employs  capital  of  his  own,  but  his  risks  appear 
to  be  negligible,  disaster  is  not  recorded  of  him,  and  his  economic 
function,  even  if  the  landlord  is  accounted  inevitably  absent, 
seems  tenuous.  It  is  rare  for  him  to  manage  an  estate  himself. 
Generally  he  sublets  to  the  cultivators,  on  various  contracts,  or 
to  other  middlemen,  who  in  turn  sublet.  “ If  the  years  are  good, 
he  realizes  a fat  profit  at  the  end  of  his  term;  and  in  bad  years  he 
always  manages  to  clear  a heavy  return  upon  his  capital.”  2 

Of  what  sort  were  the  contracts  which  the  small  folk,  the  actual 
cultivators,  made  with  gabellotto  or  proprietor  ? They  were  the 
survivals  of  a long  antiquity,  some  having  been  customary  since 
the  days  of  Rome.  In  the  mediaeval  period  they  were  of  great 
social  and  economic  consequence  and  generally  embraced  such 
terms  as  an  invariable  rent,  a perpetual  or  long-enduring  tenure 
(often  thirty  years,  several  generations),  and  the  rendering,  on  the 
tenant’s  part,  of  a multitude  of  services  and  dues.  Just  because 
they  were  eminently  suited  to  the  stability  of  the  feudal  era,  they 

1 Alongi,  op.  cit.,  pp.  21  f. 

2 Inch.  Agr.,  xiii‘,  fasc.  i,  p.  50;  references  abound  in  the  several  volumes  on 
Sicily.  See  also  Wermert,  pp.  183  ff.;  Sartorius  von  Waltershausen,  pp.  256  fi.  In- 
teresting figures  on  rental  and  subletting  are  presented  by  Professor  Passalacqua 
in  Inch.  Pari.,  vi‘,  pp.  234  f. 


74 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


were  bound  to  undergo  changes  — attenuations  — with  the  de- 
cline and  abolition  of  feudalism.  Many  of  the  most  considerable 
of  these  took  place  before  the  abolition  — in  the  first  great  spread 
of  absenteeism  — but  others  came  only  very  gradually  after- 
wards, with  the  slow  readjustment  of  power  in  southern  society. 
The  break-up  of  the  Church  lands  greatly  increased  the  extent  of 
contract  cultivation.1 

Consider  now  the  terms  of  the  modern  contracts.  But  let  us 
still,  for  the  moment,  postpone  the  attempt  to  single  out  their 
shortcomings.2 

In  Basilicata,  the  mezzadria  (metayer)  contract,  fairly  common 
in  some  mountainous  regions,  as  in  Lagonegro,  is  in  general  not 
much  diffused  and  not  increasing  in  use.  Its  terms  are  recorded 
only  in  private  writing,  or  made  orally  and  not  recorded  at  all. 
It  is  valid  for  one  agrarian  year.  The  proprietor  pays  all  the  taxes, 
and  the  final  product  is,  in  most  things,  shared  equally  between 
proprietor  and  mezzadro. 

Leases  at  fixed  rents,  of  small  estates  in  the  mountains  and 
large  in  the  plains,  are  the  dominant  contract  in  Basilicata.  The 
term  is  three  to  six,  sometimes  nine  years.  There  is  rarely  a 

1 On  the  modern  changes  much  has  been  written.  See,  e.g.,  Franchetti,  i,  ch.  ii, 
esp.  pp.  X15-121,  131;  G.  Salvioli,  “ Gabellotti  e contadini  in  Sicilia  nella  zona  del 
latifondo,”  Riforma  Sociale,  January,  r897,  pp.  67  ff.;  idem,  “ II  villanaggio,”  etc., 
p.  399.  For  a broader  view,  cf.  A.  Pertile,  Storia  del  diritlo  ilalia.no  dalla  caduta  dell’ 
impero  Romano  alia  codificazione  (2d  ed.,  6 vols.,  Turin,  1896-1902),  iv,  pp.  297- 
334,  638-643. 

2 The  volume,  I contratti  agrarii  in  Italia  (Ministero  di  Agricoltura,  Industria  e 
Commercio,  Rome,  189c)  brings  together  the  results  of  three  inquiries:  (r)  a study 
published  in  r874  in  I condizioni  dell'  agricoltura  in  Italia,  (2)  the  Inch.  Agr.  of 
r879-83,  (3)  questions  put  to  the  various  agrarian  societies  in  r882~9o.  These  re- 
ports, full  of  regional  detail,  appear  closely  consistent.  On  the  South,  see  pp.  645- 
723.  How  slight  have  been  the  changes  of  the  years  since  may  be  gathered  from 
the  reports  of  the  Inch.  Pari.,  representative  passages  of  which  are  as  follows:  on 
the  share  and  mixed  contracts,  v',  pp.  47,  r33,  r87 ; vH,  pp.  379,  388,  400,  402-407, 
4x4;  v*‘,  Note  ed  appendici,  p.  72x5  viM,  pp.  9,  X44-146,  x8o;  on  the  leases,  except 
those  of  the  latifundia,  v',  pp.  42-46,  98,  106,  r 29-131,  r8s,  r86,  269-273,  296-300; 
vii,  PP-  31 7-319,  354,  359',  vli‘>  PP-  185-187,  202;  on  the  emphyteusis  and  improve- 
ment leases,  v’,  pp.  134  f.,  189,  2x9;  v",  pp.  425-442;  viu,  p.  148;  vi“,  pp.  206  f., 
229.  On  the  recent  situation  of  the  contracts  of  Calabria,  see  further  the  admirable 
study  by  Taruffi,  pp.  330-390. 


SOUTH  ITALY.  AGRICULTURAL  SYSTEM 


75 


written  record.  The  tenants  of  the  large  estates  (and  such  are 
almost  invariably  rented  out)  sublet  them  in  small  lots  to  other 
tenants.  The  large  tenants  usually  pay  a money  rent,  while  the 
small  ordinarily  pay  in  kind.  The  proprietor  assumes  the  tax 
charges.  It  is  sometimes  contracted  that  the  tenant  shall  be 
reimbursed  for  betterments,  but  because  of  the  conjectural  assess- 
ment of  their  value  this  provision  has  been  rapidly  falling  away. 
The  emphyteusis  contract,  as  a form  of  improvement  lease,  is 
found  rarely,  except  in  the  vineyards  of  Melfi,  and  there  it  sur- 
vives because  redemption  has  not  been  found  feasible. 

In  the  Calabrian  province  of  Cosenza,  the  mezzadria  exists 
mainly  on  the  slopes  of  the  Apennines.  The  contract,  which 
generally  depends  upon  an  oral  agreement,  has  a term  usually  of 
from  one  to  three  years;  at  its  end  the  tenant  often  moves  to 
another  field.  The  proprietor  pays  all  the  taxes  and  provides 
whatever  improvements  are  introduced.  The  products,  except 
those  of  the  trees  (olives  especially),  are  shared  equally;  but  the 
contract  readily  shades  into  one  under  which  different  divisions 
take  place,  or  one  which  combines  the  lease  and  the  share. 

The  lease  for  a fixed  rent  in  Cosenza  is  more  commonly  oral 
than  written.  Its  duration  is  one  or  two  years,  and  it  is  generally 
renewed  unless  expressly  terminated.  Near  the  towns  the  rent 
has  been  payable  in  money.  In  Castrovillari  there  are  survivals 
of  the  emphyteusis  contract,  but  they  have  lost  their  character  as 
improvement  leases. 

In  Catanzaro  the  lease  predominates,  lasting  one  year  except 
where  cereal  culture  takes  place,  when  it  lasts  four  or  five  years, 
depending  on  the  rotation  used.  In  the  mountains  and  the  middle 
altitudes  the  lease  of  great  estates  is  common,  and  although  they 
are  generally  without  houses  or  tree  cultures,  the  leaseholder 
more  usually  sublets  than  cultivates  his  estate.  The  rental  of 
small  plots  is  commonly  paid  in  produce. 

In  Reggio,  large  and  middle  holdings  are  generally  leased  out 
for  a stipulated  sum,  the  contract  holds  for  from  two  to  four  years 
and  the  proprietor  pays  the  taxes. 

In  Sicily  (to  take  the  seven  provinces  together)  the  lease  for  a 
fixed  rent  is  the  most  prevalent  form.  Something  has  already 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


76 

been  said  of  the  gabellotto  and  his  lease  of  the  latifundium. 
Sometimes  he  cultivates  a part  of  the  property  and  gives  over  the 
rest  to  small  tenants  or  mezzadri. 

As  a matter  of  fact,  these  subletting  contracts  are  very  harsh.  At  harvest 
time  the  entire  product  is  collected  into  the  magazines  of  the  padrone  who 
first  takes  out  the  seeds  with  a 25  per  cent  premium  besides  16  per  cent  for 
the  so-called  battiteria,  which  represents  a deduction  for  the  grain  taken 
from  the  threshing-floor  and  cleaned  and  sifted.  And  for  the  rent  he  with- 
holds an  amount  to  the  value  agreed  upon,  basing  it  upon  an  average  of 
previous  prices.  In  consequence  there  is  often  left  to  the  subtenant  little 
or  nothing,  and  in  bad  years  he  has  often  abandoned  the  field  before  the 
threshing  and  sometimes  before  the  harvesting. 1 

In  the  aftermath  of  the  sanguinary  labor  disorders  of  the  nineties, 
arose  the  collective  lease,  fostered  sometimes  by  socialist,  some- 
times by  Catholic,  interests.  This  extraordinary  agreement  is  a 
device  whereby  bands  of  contadini,  neglecting  the  middleman, 
take  over  large  tracts  from  proprietors  and  subdivide  them  for 
cultivation.2 

The  Sicilian  leases,  other  than  those  of  the  latifundia,  run  three 
or  six  years,  and  are  generally  publicly  registered.  The  proprietor 
pays  all  the  taxes.  In  the  province  of  Catania  there  is  no  com- 
pensation for  improvements,  but  in  the  other  provinces  compen- 
sation is  estimated  and  made  at  the  termination  of  the  lease.  The 
rent  is  paid  quarterly,  and  sometimes  — especially  if  the  pro- 
prietor does  not  reside  in  the  same  commune  — the  provincial 
and  communal  taxes  are  advanced  by  the  tenant  and  deducted 
from  his  quarterly  rent. 

Contracts  providing  for  a sharing  of  the  product  are  many  in 
Sicily.  For  small  lots  the  terms  are  fixed  orally,  for  the  medium 
lots  in  writing,  and  for  the  large  ones  a public  record  is  made.  The 
term  is  three  to  six  years;  in  very  rare  instances,  recalling  a feudal 
mode,  twenty-nine  years.  The  proprietor  generally  pays  the 
taxes,  provides  a part  or  all  of  the  seed,  and  finally  receives  as  a 
rule  one-half  of  the  product;  he  makes  compensation  only  for 
improvements  specified  in  the  contract. 

1 I conlratti  agrarii,  p.  715. 

2 See  Lorenzoni’s  account,  Inch.  Pari.,  vi",  pp.  657-681;  W.  D.  Preyer,  Die 
Arbeits-  und  Pachtgenossenschaflen  Italiens,  Jena,  1913;  Bruccoleri,  pp.  130-145. 


SOUTH  ITALY.  AGRICULTURAL  SYSTEM 


77 


II 

We  have  now  discussed  land  ownership  and  agrarian  contracts 
in  regard  both  to  their  recent  status  and  their  relation  to  a more 
removed  past.  Only  incidentally  have  we  considered  their  ad- 
vantages and  disadvantages  for  an  efficient  agriculture.  To  this 
critical  question  we  must  now  turn. 

In  the  first  place,  is  it  not  to  be  inferred  that  many,  if  not  most, 
estates  are  either  too  large  or  too  small  ? Consider  the  small 
estate.  The  type  that  is  commonest  is  seldom  an  economic  unit 
of  cultivation.  Even  when,  as  rarely  happens,  an  exceptionally 
good  situation  encourages  a profitable  intensive  culture,  the  estate 
is  often  too  small  to  occupy  the  full  time  of  the  cultivator;  it  is  an 
insult  to  the  value  of  the  man.  And  where  extensive  cultivation 
rules  — as  it  does  in  the  South  — the  almost  inevitable  absence 
of  farm  animals  implies  an  absence  of  manures,  and  the  need  of  a 
crop  every  year  leads  to  a neglect  of  fallows.  To  this  must  be 
added  the  conservatism  and  general  unprogressiveness  which  a 
narrow  field  of  operations  tends  to  maintain,  if  not  actually  to 
promote.  The  small  proprietor,  a person  of  scant  means,  has 
usually  a limited  outlook  in  all  directions ; and  it  is  upon  the  small 
estates  that  the  peasant  is  most  prone  to  regard  the  use  of  ma- 
chines as  an  attempt  to  “go  ahead  of  the  Eternal  Father,  who 
therefore  punishes  him  with  bad  harvests.”  1 

To  say  that  the  large  estate  is  not  inherently  uneconomical  is  to 
say  what,  though  it  may  be  true,  has  little  bearing  upon  the  situa- 
tion in  South  Italy.  So  long  as  the  proprietor  regards  his  property 
as  he  might  a bond  which  pays  him  an  income,  whether  he  is 
versed  in  the  art  of  agriculture  or  not,  the  large  estate  is  for  South 
Italy  not  an  economic  form.  So  stolid  has  been  the  indifference 
of  the  proprietors  in  the  last  century  and  a half,  so  little  have  they 
made  capital  improvements  in  the  land,  that  the  large  estate  has 
missed  its  best  chance  to  justify  itself. 

1 V.  di  Somma,  “Dell’  economia  rurale  nel  mezzogiorno,”  Nuova  Antologia, 
March  16,  1906,  p.  307.  Cf.  Inch.  Pari.,  v!i,  p.  573. 


78 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


Yet  it  is  sometimes  argued  that  the  blame  laid  upon  the  great 
proprietors  is  not  deserved.  In  parts  of  Sicily  the  large  estates 
are  cultivated  as  units  either  by  the  proprietors  or  by  gabellotti. 
Rudini  has  pointed  out  that  even  where,  as  by  inheritance,  a 
large  estate  is  divided  among  several  owners,  it  often  continues  to 
be  cultivated  as  a whole.1  His  contention  that  this  is  necessary 
and  economic  rests  upon  a careful  argument,  which  runs  some- 
what as  follows:  Extensive  agriculture  requires  a large  unit; 
fallows  and  herds  are  a needful  part  of  it;  the  small  cultivator, 
even  if  he  could  forego  a crop  for  one  year  in  three  to  six,  would 
be  unable  to  undertake  the  risks  of  a one-crop  economy;  yet 
extensive  cultivation  (of  grain)  is  an  inevitable  consequence  of 
unchangeable  meteorologic  conditions.  “A  more  frequent  and 
copious  rainfall  would  grow  a more  abundant  forage  supply,2 
would  so  permit  the  use  of  stables  for  livestock,  the  production 
of  manure,  mixed  cultures,  a radical  change  in  the  agrarian 
rotations,  and  then  the  little  Tuscan  farm  or  the  Piedmontese 
dairy!  ” 3 

The  reputation  for  good  management  which  Rudini’s  own 
estate  enjoyed  — thanks  to  the  deep  interest  he  took  in  it  — has 
not  been  general.  He  himself  deplored  the  gabellotto.  And  he 
did  not  mean  that  his  argument  fitted  closely  the  conditions  of  the 
large  estates  of  the  continental  South,  nor  even  of  all  those  of  the 
island.  Indeed,  in  the  very  heart  of  Sicily,  small  estates,  inten- 
sively cultivated,  are  to  be  found  in  the  neighborhood  of  the 
centers  of  population.  Irrigation  and  drainage  have  in  some 
places  wrought  wonders.  But  when  all  is  said,  the  owner’s  want 
of  attachment  to  the  soil  and  his  continuing  ignorance  have  held 
the  region  in  a peculiarly  low  stage  of  development.4 

1 Rudini,  p.  162.  In  this  connection  consider  Lorenzoni’s  observation  that  it  is 
commoner  for  one  person  to  own  several  latifundia  than  for  several  persons  to  own 
one.  Inch.  Pari.,  vi',  p.  361. 

2 Three  or  four  hectares  of  land  per  head  of  cattle  are  now  necessary;  and  the 
supply  of  milk  is  meager.  The  propertyless  contadino  cannot  hope  to  conduct  a 
large  estate. 

3 Rudini,  p.  175.  For  a similar  analysis,  cf.  a passage  in  G.  Valenti’s  able  essay 
“II  latifondo  e la  sua  possibile  trasformazione ” (1894),  in  his  Studi  di  politica  ag- 
raria  (Rome,  1914),  p.  276. 

4 Cf.  Valenti,  p.  281;  Inch.  Pari.,  vi',  p.  404. 


SOUTH  ITALY.  AGRICULTURAL  SYSTEM 


79 


The  proprietors  of  medium-sized  estates  have  not  been  an  im- 
portant group.  When  mentioned  at  all  in  the  studies  that  have 
been  made,  they  are  recorded  either  as  absentee  or  as  making  a 
prosperous  living.  Were  their  numbers  greater,  they  could  be 
regarded  as  a kind  of  middle  class  of  the  population.  Undoubt- 
edly they  are  at  far  fewer  disadvantages  in  working  their  pro- 
perties than  the  owners  either  of  large  or  small  estates,  and  when 
they  have  true  managing  ability  may  be  highly  successful. 

Consider  now  the  defects  of  contract  cultivation.  (And  let  us 
pass  by  the  emphyteusis ; for  if,  with  its  term  of  twelve  to  thirty 
years,  it  was  an  excellent  means  of  planting  hillsides  with  vines, 
almond  and  orange  trees,  it  has  ceased  to  be  common.)  In  the 
constitution  of  most  existing  leases  grave  defects  are  plainly 
evident.  Tenure  is  brief,  and  renewal  by  no  means  customary. 
Brevity  of  tenure  impels  the  tenant  to  exploit  the  land,  a practice 
hardly  to  be  circumvented  by  stipulations  in  the  contracts.  The 
benefits  of  exploitation  are  immediate;  the  damage  appears  late. 
The  proprietor  cannot  keep  a close  supervision  over  the  acts  of  his 
tenants ; more  often  he  does  not  care  to,  and  if  some  proprietors 
visit  their  estates  once  or  twice  a year  — unable  then  to  note 
changes  — others  again  almost  never  see  them.  The  condition  of 
the  property  near  the  end  of  the  lease  is  proverbial. 

A second  defect,  which  is  perhaps  only  the  first  in  another  guise, 
is  the  circumstance  that  capital  sunk  in  the  soil  may  be  lost  to  the 
cultivator.  In  some  regions  there  is  no  compensation  for  better- 
ments. Whenever  compensation  takes  place  at  all,  it  occurs  at  the 
end  of  the  term,  when  the  proprietor  fixes  an  estimate  of  the  value 
of  the  betterments  and  the  cultivator  must  accept  his  appraisal  or 
go  to  the  courts  (which  he  rarely  does).  But  the  worst  fault  of  the 
system  is  that  the  tenant  is  discouraged  from  making  betterments 
at  all,  and  the  proprietor  is  too  little  interested  to  make  them 
himself. 

The  various  share  contracts  represent  an  attempt  to  cut  the 
Gordian  knot  of  fixed-rent  difficulties.  But  they  are  involved  in 
troubles  of  another  sort.  The  mezzadria  system,  successful  above 
all  other  contracts  in  Tuscany,  is  not  well  adapted  to  a region 


8o 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


where  extensive  cultivation  obtains.  In  its  best  form  it  implies 
the  care  of  live  stock,  some  tree  or  vine  culture,  and  the  growing  of 
a variety  of  herbaceous  plants;  and  the  mezzadro  lives  upon  his 
land  and  drafts  the  services  of  his  family.  In  much  of  the  South, 
however,  because  of  the  perils  of  malaria,  it  is  impossible  or  in- 
advisable to  live  upon  the  estate  that  is  being  cultivated,  and  in 
the  extensive  mode  of  cultivation  that  natural  conditions  impose, 
the  labor  of  a family  cannot  well  be  utilized  throughout  the  year.1 

In  practice  the  mezzadria  is  not  strictly  a division  of  the  prod- 
uct into  halves.  The  fertility  of  the  soil  is  so  varied  that  the  con- 
tract either  requires  a division  according  to  a different  ratio  (in 
which  case  the  generic  name  colonia  parziaria  is  preferable  and 
commoner),  or  it  is  hedged  about  by  many  restrictions  and  com- 
promises regarding  the  supply  of  implements,  farm  animals,  and 
so  forth. 

One  kind  of  restriction  is  common  to  all  leases  whether  for 
fixed  rents  or  for  shares,  except  the  lease  for  money: 2 the  culti- 
vator must  agree  to  cultivate  whatever  crops,  and  by  whatever 
rotations,  the  proprietor  is  pleased  to  demand.  With  his  pro- 
gramme thus  fixed  for  a year  or  several  years  in  advance,  he  is  not 
in  a position  to  make  many  experiments,  even  if  tempted.  It  is 
true  that  he  might  often,  if  solvent  or  if  likely  to  be  so  at  the  end 
of  his  lease,  persuade  a proprietor  to  accept  a money  rent,  but  the 
mere  fact  that  traditional  ways  are  so  sanctioned  as  to  be  stipu- 
lated in  contracts  must  itself  operate  to  repress  the  desire  to 
introduce  new  things. 

1 See  the  studies  of  J.  Grizi,  Etude  economique  sur  le  metayage  en  Italie,  Perugia, 
1909,  and  P.  F.  Serragli,  Un  contralto  agrario,  la  mezzadria  toscana,  Florence,  1908. 

One  general  defect  of  the  mezzadria  must  be  noted:  a special  unwillingness  of 
proprietor  and  tenant  to  apply  capital.  “ When  the  cultivator  has  to  give  to  his 
landlord  half  of  the  returns  to  each  dose  of  capital  and  labor  that  he  applies  to  the 
land,  it  will  not  be  to  his  interest  to  apply  any  doses,  the  total  return  to  which  is 
less  than  twice  enough  to  reward  him.”  (A.  Marshall,  Principles  of  Economics 
(5th  ed.,  London,  1907),  p.  731.)  As  much  can  be  said  of  course  when  improve- 
ments by  the  proprietor  are  in  question. 

2 Sonnino  (ii,  p.  254),  in  1876,  wrote  that  the  small  money  lease  had  been  lately 
increasing.  Salvioli  in  1894  (“  Gabellotti,”  etc.,  p.  71)  noted  that  the  move- 
ment had  taken  large  proportions  and  that  its  effect  had  been  to  promote  absen- 
teeism. 


SOUTH  ITALY.  AGRICULTURAL  SYSTEM 


81 


Upon  the  methods  of  cultivation  — the  character  of  which 
must  have  a real  dependence  upon  the  facts  of  ownership  and  con- 
tract which  we  have  studied  — it  is  possible  to  be  brief.  When 
James  Blunt  travelled  through  the  two  Sicilies  in  1818  and  1819, 
he  found  that  the  implements  and  the  methods  of  plowing,  mow- 
ing, threshing,  and  wine-pressing  answered  closely  to  the  detailed 
accounts  in  Roman  writers.  Hah  a century  later,  the  experts  of 
the  Inchiesta  Agraria  were  asked  to  discover  how  far  modem 
devices  had  been  introduced;  with  rare  exceptions  they  found 
that  few,  if  any,  changes  had  occurred;  methods  and  processes 
were  ancient.  Quite  recently,  in  Sicily,  and  on  the  coast  lands  of 
Calabria  and  Basilicata,  some  modern  machinery  has  come  into 
use.  Yet  commonly  on  the  larger  estates  the  ancient  plow,  aratro 
perticale  or  aratro-chiodo,  is  still  employed;  it  merely  scratches  the 
soil  and  if  the  plowing  is  not  done  three  times  over,  the  land  re- 
mains scarcely  opened.  On  the  smaller  estates,  the  zappa,  a kind 
of  mattock  or  hoe,  is  used,  either  with  this  plow,  or  alone;  it 
requires  infinite  labor  to  prepare  a field  for  grain.  But  it  must  be 
remembered  that  small  farms  in  particular,  and  the  farms  of 
countries  where  labor  is  cheap,  in  general,  cannot  be  expected  to 
use  expensive  machinery. 

Artificial  fertilizer  long  continued  to  be  unknown.  Its  absence 
made  fallows  all  the  more  necessary,  with  the  result  that  enor- 
mous areas  of  the  cultivable  land  — in  Sicily  nearly  a third  — 
have  annually  lain  unproductive.  Although  a greater  rainfall 
would  be  necessary  to  attain  the  full  efficacy  of  fertilizer,  yet,  as 
Rudini  admitted,  an  increase  in  the  amount  applied  would  be 
worth  while.  Where  in  the  past  fallows  have  not  been  used  or 
have  been  infrequent,  as  often  on  the  small  estates,  the  land  has, 
in  a common  phrase,  become  stanca  — feeble  or  exhausted.  Into 
the  fitness  of  the  systems  of  rotation  employed  we  cannot  enter: 
though  they  vary  considerably  from  region  to  region  they  always 
depend  much  upon  fallows;  they  are  traditional  and  often  poorly 
adapted  to  their  purpose.  Seed  is  not  well  selected.  For  much  of 
the  reaping  a hand  sickle  is  used.  Threshing  is  done  by  the 
trampling  of  oxen  on  the  barn  floor,  and  the  chaff  is  separated 
from  the  grain  by  the  wind;  or  the  asses  are  driven  endlessly  in 


82 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


circles  about  a middle  pole,  treading  out  the  grain  as  they  go  — a 
finely  picturesque  process,  reminiscent  of  ancient  Egypt  and 
Israel,  but  alas,  ill  attuned  to  modern  needs!  It  still  happens  in 
places  that  the  olives  are  heaped  so  that  the  vegetable  waters  may 
disappear  — while  the  fruit  becomes  fermented  and  its  oil  rancid. 
Defective  processes  continue  to  be  used  in  the  manufacture  of 
wine  and  oil.  Hardly  anywhere  are  the  rudiments  of  agricultural 
bookkeeping  to  be  met,  although  they  are  nowhere  so  necessary  as 
where  it  is  hard  to  win  a profit.1 

Obsolete  methods  of  cultivation  have  been  so  far  perpetuated 
in  South  Italy  that  the  productivity  of  the  region  is  low.  That  is 
a great  general  defect.  Nature,  to  be  sure,  has  greatly  com- 
plicated the  problems  of  agriculture,  but  it  is  the  controllable 
conditions  of  land  ownership  and  administration  that  have  been 
fatal.  Neglect  of  their  interests  by  the  proprietors;  contracts 
which  encourage  exploitation  of  the  soil;  a general  failure  to 
return  profits  to  the  land  and  make  betterments:  these  are  the 
fundamental  faults.  In  a word,  it  may  be  said  that  the  actual 
cultivators  have  too  little  of  the  proprietor’s  interest  — whether 
because  the  contracts  hem  in  the  cultivators,  or  because,  more 
radically,  the  cultivating  proprietors  on  estates  of  a suitable  size 
are  too  few. 

1 On  methods  and  implements,  see,  e.g.,  Inch.  Agr.  and  Inch.  Pari,  (numerous 
passages);  Blunt,  pp.  208  ff.;  Wermert,  ch.  xiv;  Taruffi,  pp.  475-593-  A work  of 
considerable  charm  is  L.  Caico,  Sicilian  Ways  and  Days,  London,  1910;  its  author- 
ess had  lived  long  in  Caltanissetta. 


CHAPTER  VI 


SOUTH  ITALY.  III.  THE  PEOPLE  AND  THEIR 
EMIGRATION 

Where  the  great  mass  of  the  population  are  occupied  in  agricul- 
ture, and  where  the  general  productivity  has  been  kept  low  by 
cumulative  faults,  it  would  seem  unnecessary  to  go  further  and 
show  in  detail  what  the  fortunes  of  the  workers  are.  Yet  I know 
no  other  way  of  making  clear  how  the  pressure  is  felt  which  seeks 
its  release  in  emigration.  We  should  like  to  know  what  division 
of  the  workers  into  classes  can  be  made,  and  upon  what  terms 
they  live  their  lives. 

In  Basilicata  a quarter  of  the  agricultural  population,  in  Cala- 
bria and  Sicily  a sixth,  are  persons  who  cultivate  lands  of  their 
own.  It  is  a much  lower  proportion  than  is  found  in  central  and 
North  Italy.1  Of  these  proprietors  the  great  majority  own  small 
or  diminutive  plots.  Except  in  certain  sections,  like  the  Conca 
d’Oro  of  Palermo,  where  the  small  proprietor  is  a rich  man,  they 
have  not  been  conspicuously  successful.  In  fact,  it  has  been  said 
that  in  Sicily  very  few  of  them  can  live  by  merely  working  their 
own  lands.2  In  some  parts  of  Basilicata  the  plots  of  land  are  half 
as  numerous  as  the  inhabitants  themselves.3 

Onerous  mortgage  debts,  incurred  often  in  the  effort  to  enlarge 
the  inherited  parcel  or  parcels  of  land,  make  impossible  the  attain- 
ment of  a comfortable  income.  Until  recently  the  eighteen-year 
instalment  payments  for  ecclesiastical  lands  — although  not 
many  buyers,  we  have  seen,  had  been  found  on  these  terms  — 
were  a heavy  burden  upon  the  shoulders  of  some  proprietors.  The 
fall  in  prices  of  agricultural  products,  a disheartening  blow  to  cul- 
tivators who  sold  their  produce,  began  at  a time  when  they  had 
already  become,  in  the  striking  phrase  of  the  Director  of  the 

1 Censimento,  igoi,  v,  pp.  lxxxii,  13 2-135. 

2 Inch.  Pari.,  vi",  p.  9.  Cf.  vi‘,  p.  232. 

3 Ibid..,  v*,  p.  50. 


83 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


84 

Inchiesta  Agraria,  “ a proletariate  of  proprietors.”  1 The  evi- 
dence, if  evidence  were  needed,  for  the  veraciousness  of  this  phrase, 
lies  in  the  fact  that  these  proprietors,  with  only  rare  exceptions, 
both  on  the  peninsula  and  in  Sicily,  hire  out  to  others  for  wages.2 
Many  lands  have  been  abandoned  — too  often  the  allotments  of 
former  feudal  estates  — and  the  numerous  forced  sales  for  failure 
to  pay  taxes  have  been  mainly  of  small  properties.3 

In  few  districts  have  the  share  cultivators  been  successful.  In 
Sicily,  except  in  some  provinces  along  the  coast,  they  have  been 
among  the  most  miserable  of  the  agriculturists,  and  as  a class  have 
stood  next  above  the  common  laborers.  Undoubtedly  a chief 
reason  for  their  failure  has  been  the  unsuitability  of  the  share 
contract  itself  to  Southern  conditions,  where  a bad  year  means 
disaster  for  an  undiversified  agriculture.  Where  the  mezzadria 
prevails,  there  are  few  hired  laborers,  and  cultivation  is  carried  on 
by  the  members  of  the  mezzadro’s  family;  since  these  are  only 
partially  or  irregularly  employed,  they  are  glad  also  to  be  hired  as 
day  laborers. 

The  tenant  who  rents  a large  estate  is  usually  successful,  the 
Sicilian  gabellotto  markedly  so.  But  the  number  of  such  tenants 
is  not  great.  Where  subletting  takes  place,  the  undertenants,  as 
we  have  seen,  often  fare  badly.  Most  generally  those  who  rent 
lands  are  an  abject  class  of  cultivators.  Particularly  numerous  in 
Basilicata,  they  have  found  it  impossible,  year  after  year,  in  the 
mountains,  to  earn  a humble  livelihood;  and  in  the  coast  region 

1 Inch.  Agr.,  xv,  p.  73.  On  their  decline  in  the  recent  period,  cf.  E.  Nathan, 
Vent'  anni  di  vita  italiana  attraverso  all ’ “ Annuario  ” (Rome,  etc.,  1906),  pp.  192, 
261. 

It  may  be  noted,  as  a matter  of  literary  curiosity,  that  Jacini’s  famous  phrase  was 
used  by  Robert  du  Var,  many  years  earlier,  in  his  Histoire  de  la  classe  ouvriere,  iv 
(1845),  Bk.  xiii,  ch.  ii,  p.  206. 

2 The  census  (1901,  v,  p.  lxxxi)  qualifies  its  statistics  of  cultivation  as  follows: 
“ When  a person  declared  himself  to  be  a cultivator  of  property  of  his  own  and  also 
a laborer  for  wages,  he  was  classified  with  the  proprietors  and  not  with  the  brac- 
cianti,  because  the  former  belonged  to  a social  class  in  some  respects  higher;  while 
probably  the  same  person  will  have  received  a greater  income  from  labor  done  on 
behalf  of  others  than  from  cultivation  upon  his  own  little  estate.”  The  volumes  of 
the  Inch.  Pari,  show  how  commonly  the  proprietors  of  the  South  depend  largely 
upon  wages. 

3 Inch.  Pari.,  v‘,  p.  50;  v!i,  pp.  458-462. 


SOUTH  ITALY.  PEOPLE  AND  EMIGRATION  85 

two  bad  years  out  of  six  have  often  been  enough  to  undo  the 
tenant  — even  where,  to  be  safe,  he  has  rented  strips  of  land  in 
scattered  places ! 1 

Hah  of  the  cultivators  of  Basilicata,  two-thirds  of  those  of 
Calabria  and  Sicily,  are  hired  laborers.  They  are  a passive  ele- 
ment in  the  agricultural  economy,  determining  little,  the  vic- 
tims of  much;  socially  despised,  a residuum  of  the  population. 
Whether  engaged  by  the  year  or  the  day  they  are  the  most  miser- 
able group  of  all;  and  they  are  particularly  wretched  when 
engaged  by  the  day,  which  is  the  usual  course  with  three  out  of 
four  of  them.  It  is  by  the  proprietors  and  the  tenants  of  the 
medium-sized  and  large  estates  that  they  are  chiefly  employed. 
At  the  time  of  the  Inchiesta  Agraria  their  wages,  still  paid  largely 
in  kind,  ran  from  250  to  400  lire  in  the  year,  say  one  or  one  and  a 
half  per  working  day,  with  an  extra  lira  daily  in  the  harvest 
period,  and  as  little  as  half  a lira  per  day  in  the  slack  season. 
When  allowance  is  made  for  the  fact  that  these  wages  were  re- 
ported by  employers,  and  therefore  probably  erred  in  liberality, 
it  is  clear  that  the  ensuing  twenty  or  thirty  years  brought  an  im- 
provement. But  the  case  is  still  bad  enough.  According  to  a 
recent  study,  a usual  wage  in  upper  Basilicata  is  1 .50  lire  and  food 
or  — following  a spreading  practice  — 2 .20  lire  without  food;  but 
January  and  February  are  almost  without  work,  and  employ- 
ment during  the  rest  of  the  year  is  inconstant.2  In  interior  Sicily, 
1 .80  lire  per  day  may  be  earned  for  1 50-200  days  (rarely  more 
days),  and  this  rate  of  270-360  lire  per  year  is  not  supplemented 
by  rations;  on  the  coast  the  situation  is  better.3 

On  the  continent  married  women  engage  in  exhausting  toil, 
with  deplorable  consequences;  in  Sicily,  particularly  in  the  in- 
terior, a happier  age-old  tradition  has  made  for  the  circumscrip- 
tion of  women’s  labor  in  the  fields.  Soon  after  the  age  of  fourteen, 
boys  undertake  the  work  of  men,  but  their  bodies  are  still  unfit  for 
it.  Savings  are  few,  a trail  of  debt  has  been  common.  Often  only 
the  clothes  on  the  laborer’s  back  are  his  own,  and  in  the  winter  he 

1 Inch.  Pari.,  pp.  45,  98,  131. 

2 Ibid..,  v\  pp.  35  f. 

3 Ibid.,  viH,  p.  136. 


86 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


may  verge  on  starvation.1  Dire  misery  has  been  the  lot  of  the 
laborers  whose  strength  has  left  them.  Only  recently,  in  Sicily, 
has  it  ceased  to  be  common  for  them  to  sell  their  sons  into  a kind 
of  slavery  in  the  sulphur  mines,  receiving  from  the  piccioniere,  at 
no  interest,  a sum  of  100-200  lire,  while  their  half-naked  boys 
spent  their  days  carrying  heavy  loads  from  the  mine’s  depths  to 
the  surface,  doomed  to  baneful  toil  until  the  loan  should  be 
repaid.2 

Is  only  low  productivity  to  blame  for  the  miserable  rewards  of 
the  South  Italian  cultivators,  whether  laborers  or  tenants  ? It 
would  be  venturesome  to  suppose  so.  Certainly  the  people  assert, 
what  doubtless  any  people  in  the  world  so  circumstanced  would 
assert,  that  they  are  exploited:  sfruttamento  rings  in  the  ears  of 
whoever  reads  the  popular  claims.  The  nonchalance  of  the  pro- 
prietor, his  readiness  to  press  his  advantage  in  making  contracts, 
the  bitter  competition  of  the  workers,  have  convinced  the  latter 
that  they  have  substance,  not  merely  semblance,  of  argument. 
And  the  charge  cannot  be  summarily  dismissed. 

Already  we  have  seen  that  in  the  assessment  of  betterments  the 
proprietor  has  a bargaining  advantage  over  his  tenant.  That  is 
but  one  instance.  The  gabellotti,  though  they  have  vied  with 
each  other  to  get  leases,  have  in  turn  sought  to  exact  what  they 
could  from  their  subtenants,  in  rentals,  on  the  one  hand,  and  in 
the  price  on  the  other,  at  which  they  have  bought  the  gathered 
crops.  Speaking  of  the  common  grain  lease  of  Sicily,  Baron 
Sonnino  maintained  that  the  competition  of  persons  who  sought 
to  be  tenants  was  so  keen  that  the  proprietors  were  enabled  to  base 
the  rental  entirely  upon  the  returns  of  good  years ; 3 and  he  held 
that,  under  the  money  lease,  the  tenants  were  again  at  the  mercy 
of  the  proprietors  in  selling  their  crops  to  get  cash. 

1 For  two  interesting  budgets  of  families  more  favorably  situated,  see  Inch. 
Pari,  vi",  pp.  138-143. 

2 G.  Baglio,  Ricerche  snl  lavoro  c su  i lavoratori  di  Sicilia,  II  solfaraio  (Naples, 
1905),  on  the  carusi,  passim,  esp.  pp.  184-193,  200-202,  279-282;  Inch.  Pari,  vi", 
pp.  471-473;  Bruccoleri,  p.  284.  I have  based  my  account  of  the  hired  laborers 
mainly  on  Inch.  Agr.  and  Inch.  Pari.,  the  publication  of  each  of  which  constitutes 
an  epoch  in  Italian  social  history. 

3 Op.  cit.,  ii,  pp.  253  S.;  he  refers  also  to  other  writers  upon  the  terratico  rent. 


SOUTH  ITALY.  PEOPLE  AND  EMIGRATION  87 

In  general  in  a country  given  over  almost  wholly  to  agriculture, 
a tenant  agriculture,  the  tenants  are  often  in  an  inferior  position 
for  bargaining.  Their  year’s  income  is  precarious,  or  does  not 
exist,  if  they  fail  to  get  a lease.  They  must  regard  the  proprietor, 
on  the  other  hand,  as  one  who  could  afford  to  forego  a year’s  rent 
altogether,  or  as  one  who,  by  the  very  fact  of  his  ownership  of 
salable  land,  has  a safe  margin  between  himself  and  want. 

When  the  case  of  the  giornaliero,  the  day  laborer,  is  studied,  a 
more  serious  situation  comes  to  light.  He  is  unskilled  and  unor- 
ganized. He  must  take  what  the  competition  of  his  fellows,  as 
hungry  as  he  and  as  dependent  as  he  upon  their  day-to-day  labor, 
will  give  him.  He  has  nothing  to  fall  back  upon.  It  would  be 
absurd  to  ask  whether  he  could  forego  a season’s  labor  to  induce 
an  employer  to  come  to  terms.  “ In  the  evening  or  early  in  the 
morning  the  contadini  go  to  the  market  place;  thither  go  the  pro- 
prietors who  have  work  to  be  done  and  they  bid  their  wage.” 
The  contadini  accept  when  they  suppose  the  wage  is  as  high  as 
they  can  get.  “ And  since  it  is  a custom  to  take  as  many  men  as 
are  necessary  to  the  completion  of  one  day’s  labor,  both  wage  and 
employment  remain  absolutely  speculative.”  1 This  is  written  of 
Calabria  but  holds  as  well  of  Basilicata  and  Sicily.2  Looking  for 
laborers  before  dawn,  with  a lantern  — quite  literally ! — instead 
of  through  a labor  exchange,  offers  remarkable  chances  for  under- 
payment and  for  the  suspicion  of  underpayment. 

The  tenant  cultivators  have  at  times  been  the  victims  of  that 
inelasticity  of  rents  which  has  been  generally  remarked  in  agri- 
cultural countries.  When,  after  the  middle  of  the  century,  the 
prices  of  grain  were  rising  fast,  rents  increased  somewhat  slowly; 
when  prices  fell,  however,  due  to  international  causes,  rents  con- 
tinued high  for  a considerable  time.  For  example,  the  average 
price  of  grain  is  said  to  have  fallen  in  the  province  of  Caltanissetta 
by  at  least  one- third,  between  1879  and  1883,  while  rents  stood 
unchanged;  and  in  the  province  of  Trapani,  they  even  continued 

1 Caputo,  pp.  1176  f. 

2 Inch.  Part.,  v‘,  pp.  34,  109-m;  v'",  p.  164;  vii;,  p.  29.  Cf.  Sonnino,  ii, 
pp.  264  S.;  G.  Baglio,  “Monografia  di  famiglia,”  Giornale  degli  Economist, 
October,  1912,  p.  308. 


88 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


to  rise  in  1 880-84 -1  Later,  however,  after  the  era  of  lower  prices 
was  firmly  established,  rents  also  began  to  decline,  irregularly 
but  considerably.2 

Another  complaint  has  been  directed  against  the  proprietors  on 
the  ground  of  usury;  not  exclusively  by  the  tenants,  to  be  sure, 
for  all  classes  of  cultivators  have  been  involved,  and  not  only 
against  the  proprietors,  for  lenders  of  other  kinds  there  have  also 
been.  Borrowing  is  common,  being  sometimes  resorted  to  be- 
cause the  tenant  has  taken  more  land  than  he  can  cultivate. 
Usury  has  flourished  in  nearly  all  zones  of  all  provinces.  If  it  is 
less  today  than  it  has  been,  the  past  need  only  be  guessed  — or  it 
can  be  concretely  appreciated  in  the  Inchiesta  Agraria.  Recent 
studies  show  rates  of  8,  10  or  12  per  cent  on  small  money  loans, 
25  per  cent  on  seed  advances,  25-50  per  cent  on  advances  of  grain, 
and  even  much  higher  rates  upon  occasion.  Sometimes  the  rates 
are  masked  in  the  prices  of  goods  sold  on  credit.3 

Persistently  and  bitterly  the  spokesmen  of  the  South  have  pro- 
tested against  the  gradual  restriction  and  abolition  of  those  rights 
of  pasture,  of  gathering  wood,  food,  stone,  and  so  forth,  on  com- 
munal and  feudal  lands,  which  in  a friendlier  epoch  stood  between 
the  people  and  indigence.  Many  of  these  lands  were  usurped 
through  shameful  political  intrigue,  for  others  an  equivalent  was 
rendered.  But  any  equivalent,  so  the  argument  runs,  benefits 
only  one  generation  — what  of  the  next  ? The  law  of  1806,  ac- 
cording to  the  indictment,  tried  to  convert  the  inconvertible,  to 
liquidate  the  perpetual  and  inalienable  patrimony  of  the  poor,  a 
privilege  deriving  from  the  right  to  fife  itself. 

1 Variazioni  del  filto  del  terreni  (Rome,  1886),  pp.  208,  214  f. 

2 No  statistics  at  once  broad  and  precise  are  available,  but  the  tendency  is  clear. 
The  reports  in  Variazioni  delfitlo  (pp.  170-215)  concur  in  holding  that  a decline  had 
taken  place.  The  volume  of  the  following  year,  I conti  culturali  del  frumento,  con- 
firms the  decline,  though  incidentally  (pp.  198-233).  Professors  Coletti  and  Valenti 
further  attested  the  fact  in  1900  in  the  results  of  a questionnaire;  the  depression  in 
rents  had  been  especially  great  in  the  South  and  the  islands.  See  F.  Coletti,  “La 
rendita  e il  valore  della  terra  e la  piccola  proprieta  in  Italia  nell’  ultimo  ventennio,” 
Riforma  Sociale,  December  15,  1900,  pp.  it64-ii7t.  For  other  evidence,  see  Inch. 
Pari,  vH,  pp.  255-259,  and  vi!,  pp.  744-791. 

3 Ibid.,  v‘, pp.  158 f.,  201;  vu, p.630;  vi‘,pp.7o8f.  Cf. Lori, pp.  437-471. 


SOUTH  ITALY.  PEOPLE  AND  EMIGRATION  89 


The  world,  however,  is  intolerant  of  the  inadaptable  survivals 
of  another  age  and  is  chiefly  concerned  that  the  transition  to  a 
new  age  should  be  smooth.  Half  a century  ago,  Le  Play  was  still 
acclaiming  the  beneficence  of  these  ancient  rights;  but  today 
there  can  be  no  question  of  reconstituting  them  nor  even  of  re- 
taining them  where  they  still  exist.  On  the  other  hand,  an  im- 
portant truth  lies  in  the  charge  that  the  economic  interests  of  the 
cultivators  have  in  many  places  been  hurt  by  the  century’s 
changes.1 

An  outcry  has  been  raised  against  the  burdens  of  taxation,  and 
since  these  have  been  often  held  to  constitute  a major  causa 
movens  of  emigration,  the  matter  cannot  be  glossed  over.  By 
every  standard  the  taxes  of  Italy  must  be  adjudged  heavy.  But 
only  an  examination  of  their  character  can  reveal  how  far  their 
weight  bears  upon  the  emigrating  classes. 

There  is  first  of  all  to  consider,  as  a kind  of  substructure  of  the 
entire  tax  system,  the  land  tax.  Its  long  history  we  may  pass  by, 
except  to  say  that  in  its  modern  forms  it  rests  mainly  upon  the 
catasti,  or  descriptive  land  records,  of  the  eighteenth  and  early 
nineteenth  centuries.  The  catasti  themselves,  of  which  a number 
often  coexisted  in  one  province,  had  a confusing  variety  of  bases : 
area,  value  of  product,  physical  description  of  the  land  and  its 
products.  Often  they  erred  broadly  as  originally  drawn;  in 
Catanzaro,  for  example,  the  cultivable  area  was  represented  to 
exceed  the  actual  area.  Their  great  regional  differences  gave  rise 
to  distressing  regional  tax  inequalities,  within  compartments  as 
well  as  between  compartments.  As  the  nineteenth  century  wore 
on,  the  inevitable  shiftings  in  crops  grown  and,  presently,  the 
great  though  varying  declines  of  prices,  still  further,  and  notably, 
accentuated  the  inequalities.  By  1886  the  mischief  done  had 
already  been  grievous,  and  the  accusation  was  common  that  the 
larger  proprietors  were  favored.  In  that  year,  anew  catasto  was 

1 On  the  usi  civici  see,  besides  the  references  already  given  on  post-feudal  land 
changes,  a full  essay  by  E.  Carnevale,  “ I demani  e gli  usi  civici  in  Sicilia,”  in  Inch. 
Pari.,  vi1,  pp.  258-34^.  See  also  Ibid,.,  v‘,  pp.  136  f.;  v",  pp.  171-178;  v"*,  Note 
ed  appendici,  pp.  371-552- 


90 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


hopefully  begun.  As,  province  by  province,  it  advanced,  the  tax 
was  equalized  and  substantially  reduced.  Only,  its  progress  has 
been  at  a snail’s  pace  and  it  has  not  yet  reached  the  South. 

Besides  being  unequal,  the  tax  has  been  heavy.  What  a vora- 
cious appetite  the  new-born  kingdom  of  Italy  developed ! But  a 
still  greater  appetite  was  that  of  the  provinces  and  the  communes, 
entitled  under  the  law  to  superadd  their  tax,  their  centesimi  ad- 
dizionali,  to  that  of  the  State.  The  supertax  soon  became  by  far 
the  weightier  part  of  the  burden.  Time  and  again  the  investi- 
gators of  the  Inchiesta  Agraria  reported  that  30  or  35  per  cent 
of  th,e  net  income  of  an  estate  went  into  the  levies. 

Who  has  paid  the  land  tax  ? It  is  insufficient  to  say  that  in  a 
relatively  burdenless  way  it  has  been  paid  out  of  a Ricardian  rent. 
Too  frequently  in  this  ancient  agricultural  country,  the  labor  of 
man  has  given  to  the  soil  its  chief  value ; and  the  heavy  tax  easily 
eats  more  than  an  economic  rent.  However  that  be,  the  special 
fretting  of  the  land  assessment  turns  upon  its  restless  tendency  to 
increase.  In  the  course  of  a generation  most  parcels  of  land 
change  hands,  at  least  once,  by  inheritance  if  not  by  purchase. 
Since  the  purchase  price  will  not  capitalize  the  amount  of  the  cus- 
tomary tax,  along  with  the  other  net  income,  the  purchaser  will 
not  feel  the  burden  of  this  tax;  but  he  will  feel  the  burden  of  every 
addition  to  it. 

So  it  is  clear  then  that  every  small  landowner  has  had  to 
shoulder  every  increase  of  the  land  tax.  It  could  not  be  escaped. 
His  land  is  peculiarly  the  land  whose  value  derives  from  invested 
capital  rather  than  from  a pure  rent.  But  what  of  the  great  pro- 
prietors — can  they  shift  any  part  of  their  burden  upon  their 
hired  workpeople  or  their  tenants  ? Hardly  upon  the  workpeople, 
for  their  wages  are  independently  determined;  at  the  most  there 
might  be  a generally  less  liberal  treatment  by  employers.  Nor 
readily  upon  the  share  cultivators  who  likewise  make  their  terms 
by  competition.  Sometimes  it  happens  that  the  tenants  who  pay 
a rental  for  their  lands  commit  themselves  to  pay  the  taxes;  by 
such  then  any  new  increase  in  the  tax  rate  would,  for  the  duration 
of  their  contract,  be  felt  as  a burden.  But  precisely  this  situation, 
in  which  the  tenant  pays  the  tax,  we  have  seen  to  be  an  uncom- 


SOUTH  ITALY.  PEOPLE  AND  EMIGRATION 


91 


mon  one.  And  therefore  it  must  be  concluded  that  the  land  tax 
is  not  easily  shifted  and  that  it  is  felt  to  be  a burden  by  those  only 
who  depend  for  their  living  mainly  upon  the  income  from  their 
small  estates,  and  then  only  when,  and  in  so  far  as,  the  tax  has 
been  increased  since  their  acquisition  of  the  estates. 

The  remaining  taxes,  in  their  aggregate  greater  than  the  land 
tax,  may  be  more  briefly  considered.  The  tax  upon  buildings  has 
attained  its  great  weight  principally  by  reason  of  the  constantly 
increasing  provincial  and  communal  supertaxes;  sometimes  25- 
35  per  cent  of  the  taxable  income  is  taken.  In  theory  there  is 
exemption  for  any  building  that  is  indispensable  to  the  work  of 
agriculture  (which  is  independently  taxed  by  the  land  tax).  But 
in  practice  exemption  is  often  refused  on  meager  or  technical 
grounds.  And  no  exemption  is  intended  for  the  town  dwellings  of 
agriculturists,  so  general  in  the  South. 

A state  tax  upon  “ movable  wealth  ” tries  to  reach  those  in- 
comes which  do  not  proceed  from  land  and  buildings.  Since  it 
exempts  annual  incomes  below  640  lire  and  daily  wages  below 
3.50  lire,  the  mass  of  the  wage  earners  escape  its  burden.  But 
while  a cultivating  proprietor  pays  only  the  land  tax,  the  tenant 
who  rents  land  pays  a tax  upon  his  agricultural  income  which 
is  additional  to  the  land  tax  which  the  proprietor  pays.  For 
tenants  whose  rental  is  below  50  lire  there  is  exemption ; by  other 
tenants  the  tax  is  often  seriously  felt. 

Salt  is  a government  monopoly,  upon  which  the  profit  or  tax 
approximates  as  much  as  eight-ninths  of  the  price  of  the  com- 
modity. It  is  a most  oppressive  tax,  outraging  the  canon  of  pro- 
portionality. The  burden  of  the  tobacco  monopoly  can  be 
escaped  by  those  who  choose  not  to  smoke.  A lighter  excise  tax 
on  sugar  strikes  the  poor,  yet  it  must  be  remembered  that  popular 
use  of  sugar  is  vastly  more  restricted  than  in  England  or  the 
United  States.  The  lottery  monopoly  and  the  liquor  excises 
impose  heavy  burdens,  but  the  provident  and  sober  can  avoid 
them.  Duties  upon  transactions  are  numerous,  unquestionably 
creating  obstacles  to  business.1 

1 For  an  account  of  an  instance  of  a large  proprietor  who  wished  to  break  up  his 
land  into  small  plots  to  encourage  small  proprietorship  and  who  found  that  fourteen 


92 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


Much  more  important  than  national  tariff  duties,  whose  inci- 
dence is  not  always  clear,  are  the  innumerable  local  duties  levied 
generally  by  the  communes.  They  survive  from  a long  antiquity. 
Under  united  Italy,  a portion  of  the  collections  has  gone  to  the 
State,  but  it  has  been  small  compared  with  that  claimed  locally. 
In  1892  the  State  ceased  to  be  a party  to  profit  from  the  vexatious 
bread  and  paste  tax;  but  the  communes,  especially  in  the  South, 
did  not  generally  follow  its  example.  The  other  taxes  upon  food 
and  upon  other  household  and  construction  supplies  imported  into 
the  communes  have  shown  no  tendency  to  decrease  and  they  bear 
heavily  upon  the  poor. 

The  old  grist  tax,  so  onerous  in  the  days  of  the  Inchiesta 
Agraria  and  once  an  unmaker  of  ministries,  has  disappeared;  but 
the  tax  upon  dairy  and  draft  animals  persists.  It  cannot  usually 
be  shifted  and  in  the  South  especially  it  weighs  heavily.  Another 
deplorable  charge  is  the  family  tax,  intended  to  strike  certain 
forms  of  income  not  arising  from  local  real  estate  or  from  the 
remuneration  of  occupations.  Applied  in  the  South,  it  almost 
always  falls  upon  incomes  already  reached  by  other  levies,  and 
despite  an  exemption  of  small  sums,  it  is  a burden  upon  many  of 
the  families  that  make  up  the  emigration. 

So  much  for  particular  levies  and  their  incidence.  Fundamen- 
tally the  great  question  is  not,  Are  taxes  heavy,  and  must  the  poor 
pay  them  ? for  in  a poor  community  the  necessaries  of  life  cannot 
escape  taxation;  but  rather,  Are  the  heavy  taxes  so  spent  as  to 
ease  the  conditions  of  earning  and  of  living  ? Not  a burden,  but 
the  lightening  of  a burden,  is  the  true  object  of  taxes;  in  other 
words,  a wise  cooperative  expenditure  is  their  object. 

In  part  such  expenditure  exists;  typical  directions  are  for 
police,  schools,  roads,  sanitation.1  But  in  the  case  of  some  taxes 

taxes,  aggregating  63.25  lire,  had  to  be  paid  on  plots  valued  at  200  lire,  see  J.  Aguet, 
“ Come  l’eccessiva  fiscalita  impedisca  in  Italia  la  costituzione  della  piccola  pro- 
prieta,”  Riforma  Sociale,  January-February,  1917,  pp.  122  f. 

1 It  is  by  no  means  intended  that  the  outlays  under  these  heads  are  either  suffi- 
cient or  well  devised.  One  of  the  most  reiterated  complaints  of  the  contadini  is  that 
the  roads  are  inadequate  for  carrying  goods,  or  are  nonexistent,  and  that  all  travel- 
ling is  unsafe  because  difficult  and  is  therefore  so  little  resorted  to  that  isolation  re- 
sults. In  the  kingdom  of  Naples,  the  capital  city  was  everything  — as  a matter  of 


SOUTH  ITALY.  PEOPLE  AND  EMIGRATION 


93 


the  expenses  of  collection  consume  nearly  the  entire  sums  re- 
ceived. Many  municipal  outlays  for  theaters,  festivals,  monu- 
ments, and  the  like  have  been  at  an  extravagant  rate.  Local 
political  corruption  abounds,  and  many  officials  render  no  equiv- 
alents for  their  salaries.  A vast  amount  has  been  spent  on  con- 
tracts, national  and  local,  for  projects  beneficial  mainly  to  those 
who  have  furthered  them.  The  great  State  responsibilities  — a 
long-standing  national  debt,  maintenance  of  army  and  navy  — 
have  claimed  much  of  the  tax  receipts,  and  (evil  days  having  come) 
will  claim  more.  Meanwhile,  agriculture  and  the  South  have 
received  back,  in  the  more  tangible  ways,  only  a part  of  what  they 
have  yielded. 

Had  it  been  otherwise,  had  agriculture  and  the  directer  interests 
of  the  contadini  been  advanced,  then  the  great  taxation  might 
even  have  contributed  to  deter  emigration.  Strangely,  however, 
it  cannot  be  said  that,  had  the  land  taxes  been  lighter,  emigration 
would  have  been,  in  any  corresponding  sense,  less.  For  that  tax 
has  been  borne  mainly  by  the  larger  proprietors,  by  such  as, 
almost  as  a class,  have  been  spending  their  incomes  otherwise 
than  upon  betterment  of  their  estates.  Is  it  likely  that  allevia- 
tion of  their  condition  would  have  resulted  in  any  more  liberal 
contracts  for  cultivation  or  in  any  substantial  increase  of  care  of 
their  estates  ? All  that  we  know  of  their  ways  in  the  past  bids  us 
answer,  no.1 

policy.  Railroads  were  opposed  on  a thousand  pretexts  — not  least  because  they 
made  for  immorality  ! A better  day  has  brought  the  railroads,  but  the  lack  of  com- 
munal and  inter-communal  roads  has  continued  to  be  widespread  and  serious.  In 
Inch.  Agr.  and  Inch.  Pari,  are  many  references  to  the  subject  of  communications. 
Cf.  G.  Malvezzi  and  U.  Zanotti-Bianco,  L’Aspromonte  occidentale  (Milan,  1910), 
pp.  42-58.  See  also  the  striking  early  account  by  E.  P.  Rossi,  La  Basilicata. 
(Verona,  1868),  Bk.  ii,  §§  lxiii-lxxi. 

1 The  Inch.  Agr.  and  Inch.  Pari,  contain  much  concrete  information  on  rural 
taxation.  Volume  viini  of  the  latter  is  a monograph  by  G.  Carano-Donvito  entitled 
Dali  sulle  Jinanze  locali  del  mezzogiorno.  The  best  general  treatise  on  Italian  taxa- 
tion is  L.  Einaudi,  Corso  di  scienza  della  finanza,  3d  ed.,  Turin,  1916;  the  previous 
edition  of  this  work  is  at  some  points  ampler.  See  also  F.  S.  Nitti,  Principi  di 
scienza  delle  finanze,  Naples,  1903.  An  excellent  survey  of  the  changes  of  taxation  is 
Part  ii,  ch.  vii,  of  G.  Sensini,  Le  variazioni  dello  stato  economico  d’ltalia  nell'  ultimo 
trentennio  del  secolo  XIX,  Rome,  1904.  An  earlier  classic  is  G.  Alessio,  Saggio  sul 
sistema  tributario  in  Italia,  2 vols.,  Rome,  1883;  see  especially  the  first  volume. 


94 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


What  are  the  concrete  terms  of  living  in  the  South  ? What  is 
the  immediate  form  of  things  which  the  emigrant  leaves  behind 
him  ? We  have  dealt  so  far  mainly  with  the  many  limitations 
upon  income  and  have  left  to  inference  the  ways  of  expenditure. 
If  we  are  still  dealing  principally  with  conditions  having  an 
economic  form,  let  it  be  remembered  that  they  are  conditions  so 
direct  and  intimate  in  their  pressure  that  they  seem  to  spell  life 
itself. 

The  setting  is  well  enough  known.  Sometimes  it  is  a desolate 
scene,  or  a pleasantly  picturesque  one,  sometimes  a landscape 
rising  to  an  association  of  mountain,  sky,  and  sea  in  a crystal  and 
incomparable  beauty.  The  houses  of  the  contadini  are  small  and 
simple,  placed  generally  in  a town  upon  an  elevation,  those  of  the 
more  wretched  day  laborers  (which  rent  for  as  little  as  36  lire  a 
year)  being  on  the  periphery.  One  story  is  usual.  Tuff,  stone, 
brick,  mud,  and  lava  are  the  materials  of  composition;  rarely 
wood.  Washing  facilities  are  meager,  drainage  is  absent.  Oil  or 
petroleum  may  be  burned,  but  many  a family  has  its  evening  meal 
in  darkness.  “ The  street  is  the  parlor,  the  resort  for  gossiping, 
odes  and  wooing;  it  is  where  the  children  romp,  the  women  work 
and  the  men  have  their  games.”  1 On  the  other  hand  the  house 
itself,  often  of  only  one  room,  may  contain  during  the  night  and 
part  of  the  day,  not  only  the  entire  family,  with  a demoralizing 
collapse  of  privacy,  but  the  ass,  goat,  poultry,  and  other  animals, 
all  making  assaults  upon  order  and  cleanliness;  heroic  is  the  role 
of  many  wives  in  keeping  their  households  clean.  It  even  happens 
that  several  families  will  occupy  one  room.  When  the  work-place 
is  far  away,  the  worker  may  remain  in  the  fields  overnight,  per- 
haps throughout  the  season,  resting  on  the  ground,  or  perhaps  on 
straw,  with  a straw  roof  over  his  head.  Worst  off  is  the  herdsman, 
who  must  sleep  lightly.  Here  and  there  families  live  in  caves 
or  dens;  but  in  the  Matera  district  of  Basilicata,  thousands  live 

The  land  tax  is  capably  dealt  with  in  M.  M.  Libelli,  L’imposla  fondiaria  sui  lerreni 
in  Italia,  Florence,  1906.  Of  its  chosen  theme  there  is  no  better  discussion  than  the 
essay  of  G.  Valenti,  II  sistema  tributario  italiano  in  relazione  all’  escrcizio  dell ’ agricol- 
tura,  published  by  the  Societa  degli  Agricoltori  Italiani  in  the  volume  LTlalia  agri- 
cola  alia  fine  del  secolo  XIX,  Rome,  1901. 

1 Inch.  Pari.,  vin,  p.  433. 


SOUTH  ITALY.  PEOPLE  AND  EMIGRATION  95 

so,  perched  upon  the  hillside,  braving  the  dampness  — true 
troglodites.1 

During  unemployment,  whether  of  a normal  sort  or  exceptional, 
hunger  or  at  least  privation  is  not  uncommon.  Otherwise,  the 
food  is  likely  to  be  sufficient  in  quantity,  even  running  to  seven 
moderate  repasts  a day  at  harvest  time,  and  is  likely  to  be  whole- 
some. Its  basis  is  bread,  baked  by  the  wife,  and  made  less  often 
out  of  maize  than  when  the  reports  of  the  Inchiesta  Agraria  were 
prepared.  Dry  bread,  soaked  in  oil  and  salt,  is  the  staple  diet  of 
many  a laborer.  Chestnut  bread  has  become  rare.  In  general 
meat  is  seldom  eaten,  or  only  on  grand  occasions,  or  when  a sick 
animal  has  died.  Women  and  children  never  or  rarely,  depending 
upon  the  region,  taste  wine;  men  may  do  so  on  days  of  hard  work.2 

Physical  robustness  is  not  general  and  is  particularly  wanting 
in  the  lower  districts.  In  stature  the  men  of  the  southern  com- 
partments rank  lowest  in  Italy,  and  they  have  poor  chests.  Un- 
doubtedly, inferior  physique  has  made  for  the  frequency  of 
malaria,  just  as  it  has  been  a consequence  of  malaria.  Tracoma, 
as  a filth  disease,  has  prevailed  in  many  sections.  Tuberculosis 
and  alcoholism  are  uncommon  but  apparently  increasing;  they 
have  had  but  a brief  history  in  the  South.3 

Life  in  the  South  exalts  the  family.  It  has  been  said  of  Sicily 
that  the  family  sentiment  is  perhaps  the  only  deeply  rooted 
altruistic  sentiment  that  prevails.4  Gallant  to  his  wife,  the 
husband  has  almost  complete  power  over  the  members  of  the 
family;  the  wife’s  affection  tends  to  be  slavish.  Concubinage  is 
relatively  common  — - is  something  left  of  Greek  and  Saracen 
traditions  ? In  marriage,  convenience  is  rarely  sacrificed  to  love, 
and  the  parties  come  generally  from  the  same  region.  Nearly  a 
third  of  Sicilian  brides  are  between  the  ages  of  fifteen  and  twenty, 

1 The  eighteenth  century  description  by  Galanti  (cited  in  Inch.  Pari.,  v‘",  Note 
ed  appendici,  p.  173)  accords  with  recent  conditions.  Similar  descriptions  are  in 
Inch.  Agr.  For  the  housing  situation  generally  I have  drawn  chiefly  upon  Inch. 
Pari., especially  v!,  pp.  144  f.,  193;  vu,  pp.  495-505;  vui,  pp.  174  f.;  viu,pp.  449-455, 
and  also  upon  my  own  more  limited  observation. 

2 Inch.  Pari.,  v‘,  pp.  141  f.;  vi!,  pp.  478-480;  vi",  pp.  456-458. 

3 Ibid.,  vh,  p.  516;  vHi,  Note  ed  appendici,  pp.  49-60;  vi",  pp.  559  f.,  612-623. 

4 Lorenzoni,  in  Inch.  Pari.,  vi",  p.  462. 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


96 

on  the  peninsula  probably  a larger  proportion ; the  men  are  gen- 
erally older  than  twenty.  Four  or  six  children  are  commonly 
born,  eight  or  ten  sometimes.  It  is  a region  where  earning  capac- 
ity demands  first  of  all  a strong  arm,  and  where  the  question  of 
the  scattering  of  a patrimony  does  not  usually  arise  because  there 
is  no  important  patrimony  to  scatter.  Among  the  better-to-do 
contadini  children  are  less  numerous.1 

In  this  population  children  have  grown  to  adult  fife  unlettered. 
Three  out  of  four  of  the  inhabitants  six  years  of  age  or  older,  in  the 
first  years  of  the  twentieth  century,  could  neither  read  nor  write. 
It  is  a situation  with  few  parallels  in  civilized  countries,  and  a 
long  story  lies  behind  it.  Suffice  it  here  to  say  that  under  Joseph 
Bonaparte  and  Murat,  representatives  of  an  ampler  democracy, 
many  schools  were  opened,  and  elementary  instruction  was  de- 
clared obligatory  and  free.  Reaction  followed.  But  while  Aus- 
tria in  the  North,  despite  many  tyrannies,  tried  to  improve  the 
schools,  the  Bourbons  in  the  two  Sicilies  restored  the  ancestral 
darkness.  It  was  an  era,  wrote  E.  P.  Rossi,  only  six  years  after  it 
ended,  “ in  which  the  art  of  governing  lay  in  neglecting  and  de- 
spising every  sort  of  instruction.”  2 Ferdinand  II  was  not  anxious 
that  his  people  should  think,  and  rarely  deviated  into  thinking 
himself.  Even,  however,  in  a liberal  era,  schools  require  more  than 
good  wishes  and  toleration.  Low  as  the  expenditure  for  education 
has  been  in  all  of  Italy  since  unification,  it  continues  to  be  lowest 
in  Basilicata  and  in  Calabria,  and  very  low  in  Sicily  also.  At- 
tendance is  slight,  buildings  are  inadequate  and  unhygienic,  and 
the  decrease  in  illiteracy  over  many  years  has  been  much  less 
than  in  the  North.3 

1 W.  T.  Thornton,  in  1846,  holding  that  misery  augments  the  birth  rate,  cited 
the  South  Italian  laborer  as  evidence  for  his  theory;  see  Over-population  and  its 
Remedy  (London,  1846),  pp.  158-160.  On  the  family  see  Inch.  Pari.,  v1,  pp.  65  f., 
154,  198;  vi”,  pp.  462-466. 

1 Rossi,  p.  258.  See  the  entire  § xxvi  in  Bk.  ii,  and  also  §§  xxvii-xxxi. 

5 Inch.  Pari.,  vi”,  pp.  515-523;  De  Nobili,  Pt.  viii,  ch.  14;  Malvezzi  and  Zanotti- 
Bianco,  pp.  83-ior,  129-132.  The  last  reference  contains  the  results  of  a direct 
inquiry.  See  also  G.  Salvemini,  “ II  problema  della  scuola  popolare  in  provincia  di 
Reggio  Calabria,”  Nuova  Antologia,  February  1,  1910,  pp.  521-536.  This  study 
contains  results  of  a report  on  primary  schools  made  by  a Florentine  society. 


SOUTH  ITALY.  PEOPLE  AND  EMIGRATION  97 


Of  the  implications  and  accompaniments  of  the  lack  of  educa- 
tion in  South  Italy  one  might  speak  at  length.  Tradition  and 
credulity  are  the  masters  of  the  population,  impotence  to  do  well 
and  allegiance  to  false  principles  of  living  result.  It  is  the  un- 
taught child  in  the  man  that  sways  the  destinies  of  these  people; 
the  beauty  of  the  child’s  impulses  is  there,  but  also  the  inconse- 
quential character  of  those  impulses,  their  unfitness  for  compre- 
hensive action.  Religion  is  half  festivity  and  half  superstition. 
The  child  at  play  and  the  pagan  tradition  of  Greeks  and  Saracens 
make  for  the  first,  the  uncriticising  and  fearing  child  make  for  the 
second.  This  child’s  God  is  anthropomorphic,  his  saints  are  in 
a feudal  hierarchy.  There  is  a Church  whose  secular  might  is  as 
real  and  as  irresistible  as  the  secular  might  of  sea  and  burning 
mountain,  as  truly  a part  of  the  nature  of  things.  The  eager  con- 
trol of  the  priest  has  reached  into  the  major  decisions  of  the  life  of 
the  communicant.  To  understand  the  tragedy  of  the  result  one 
must  remember  that  the  priesthood  has  been  corrupt  and  immoral 
and  the  enemy  of  educational  and  economic  reform.1 

Where  toil  is  hard  and  democratic  institutions  are  few,  recrea- 
tion is  likely  to  take  its  direction  from  the  elementary  dispositions. 
When  the  attraction  of  the  numerous  religious  festivals  does  not 
rest  upon  drama  and  representation,  it  rests  upon  the  chance  of  a 
frolic.  Of  popular  pictorial  art  there  is  little  save  the  splendid 
decoration  of  carts  in  Sicily.  One  kind  of  pleasure  comes  from 
gambling,  which  is  greatly  diffused.  Gambling  with  cards  and 
the  like  comes  nearer  to  recreation  than  does  the  lottery,  but  the 
latter,  managed  by  the  State  for  its  own  profit,  has  had  an  extra- 
ordinary development  in  the  South.  Sexual  immorality  would 
appear  to  be  not  much  less  than  when  the  dolorous  pictures  of  the 
Inchiesta  Agraria  were  painted.2 

1 It  is  doubtless  an  evidence  of  improvement  that  the  accounts  of  a degraded 
priesthood  are  to  be  found  in  Inch.  Agr.  rather  than  in  Inch.  Pari.  Lorenzoni 
(Inch.  Pari.,  vii!,  p.  514),  holding  that  the  clergy  are  still  mostly  ignorant  and  coarse, 
thinking  of  themselves  rather  than  of  the  religious  consciences  of  their  people,  yet 
believes  that  the  younger  priests  are  of  a more  promising  type  than  could  have  been 
found  in  1885. 

2 Inch.  Pari.,  vi‘,  p.  687. 


98 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


One  cannot  find  in  any  one  circumstance  the  roots  of  the  un- 
usual record  in  crime  which  the  South  has  had.  On  the  continent 
the  rugged  country,  with  its  legion  hiding  places,  a sparse  and 
repressed  population,  a government  administratively  weak,  per- 
mitted the  great  strength  of  brigandage  through  the  centuries.1 
But  brigandage  is  no  more.  Of  Sicily,  however,  it  cannot  be  said 
that  the  vendetta  has  disappeared,  or  the  mafia.  On  the  contrary, 
the  principle  that  each  man  should  settle  his  quarrels  himself  has 
persisted  through  recent  times.  A series  of  alien  conquests  not- 
withstanding, Sicily  has  never  been  conquered.  Its  soul  is  that  of 
a rebel  today.  Homicides  in  Sicily  are  at  five  times  the  rate  of 
North  Italy,  only  decreasing  somewhat  of  late  years.  Other 
crimes  also  have  been  excessively  common,  with  an  emphasis 
upon  thefts  (as  in  the  fields)  and  the  lesser  forms  of  immorality.2 

So  grave  has  been  the  economic  maladjustment  which  has  come 
to  rule  in  South  Italy  that  one  need  not  long  ask  why  it  should 
prompt  to  emigration.  And  yet  our  account  is  still  incomplete. 
Though  we  have  knit  it  to  sundry  remote  happenings,  a further 
word  regarding  historical  forces  is  necessary. 

For  several  centuries  a blight  has  lain  upon  the  South.  An 
ancient  greatness  there  was,  under  the  Greeks,  a mediaeval  great- 
ness under  the  Normans;  fourteenth-century  Frederick  made 
Sicily  one  of  the  freest  lands  of  Europe.  Under  Spaniard  and 
Bourbon,  however,  the  life  of  the  region  declined.  Neglect, 
weakness,  and  oppression  in  varying  degrees  characterized  the 
rulers.  There  was  no  encouragement  of  artisanry  and  bourgeoisie. 
There  was  no  government  which  the  people  could  call  their  own. 
From  the  powerful  hold  of  feudalism  no  relief  could  come  save  by 
external  pressure,  and  such  a pressure  the  Spaniards  did  not 
exercise,  nor  the  Bourbon  Charles.  Though  the  startling  irrup- 
tion of  the  French  was  too  short-lived  to  make  a new  people  out 
of  the  old  — considering  that  the  old  was  so  far  removed  from 

1 Cf.  Rossi,  entire  Bk.  iii;  P.  Villari,  Le  letterc  meridionali  (Florence,  1878), 
pp.  39-60. 

2 In  the  period  of  low  wages,  1890-97,  stealing  became  virtually  a means  of  ex- 
istence in  Sicily.  See  Baglio,  “ Monografia  di  famiglia,”  pp.  300  f. 


SOUTH  ITALY.  PEOPLE  AND  EMIGRATION 


99 


modern  ways  — it  effected  several  momentous  reforms  which 
even  the  ensuing  half  century  of  restored  Bourbonism  had  to 
tolerate.  “ The  negation  of  God  erected  into  a system  of  govern- 
ment,” in  Gladstone’s  phrase,  preserved  the  conditions  of  the 
country  much  as  they  had  been  for  three  centuries,  and  when  it 
gave  way  to  the  government  of  Italy,  a stupendous  task  of  reform 
was  in  waiting.  But  the  reform  came  not.  The  Mezzogiorno  was 
promptly  regarded  more  as  a conquered  region  than  as  a partici- 
pating entity  in  the  new  government.  Its  people  were  too  back- 
ward to  count  as  equals  with  those  of  the  North.  Its  deputies  in 
Parliament  were  a group  to  conciliate.  The  devotion  of  national 
effort  to  the  South,  the  investment  of  national  money  there,  could 
not  be  expected  to  bring  such  quick  returns  as  in  the  North,  and 
the  new  Italy  had  the  impatience  of  youth. 

So  economic  ills  remained  uncorrected.  Institutions  were  suf- 
fered to  exist  which  the  world  in  its  progress  had  sentenced  to 
death.  Landed  proprietors,  who  could  afford  to,  kept  away  from 
their  estates.  No  aggressive  leadership  appeared  — how  could  it 
arise  when  for  centuries  no  social-political  ladder  was  available 
upon  which  the  obscure  but  gifted  man  could  mount  to  com- 
mand ? Feudal  class  lines  gave  way  grudgingly.  When  the  in- 
vestigators of  the  Inchiesta  Agraria  inquired  into  the  relations 
subsisting  between  proprietors  and  laborers,  they  found  every- 
where a servile  homage  on  the  part  of  the  peasants,  the  attitude 
of  the  man  who  appreciates  that  the  gulf  between  him  and  an- 
other is  impassable.  In  an  eloquent  article  upon  emigration, 
Professor  Villari,  after  recalling  how  the  communes  had  made 
liberty  the  privilege  of  a restricted  oligarchy,  wrote:  “In  history 
and  in  legend  we  have  had  no  rural  heroes.  . . . Our  revolution, 
our  risorgimento  were  bourgeois  achievements.  The  contadini 
never  took  a notable  part  in  them.  They  have  always  been 
abandoned  by  us,  entirely  outside  our  national  political  life,  and 
such  they  remain  today.”  1 Garibaldi,  it  will  be  recalled,  found 
supporters  but  rarely  among  the  country  folk.  Gallenga,  who  had 
been  in  the  Calabrian  campaign  of  i860,  wrote:  “ The  population 
of  the  towns  was  eager  for  news  and  all  agog  with  expectation  . . . 

1 P.  Villari,  “ L’emigrazione,”  etc.,  pp.  54  f.  Cf.  Franchetti,  i,  pp.  137  f. 


IOO 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


while  that  of  the  rural  districts  maintained  its  usual  attitude  of 
dumbfounded  and  bothered  neutrality.”  1 

What  Villari  asserts  of  rural  political  participation  is  indeed 
easily  borne  out.  Illiteracy  has  been  (until  very  lately)  a sufficient 
ground  for  exclusion  from  the  electoral  lists,  and  in  Basilicata  the 
contadini  have  usually  made  up  only  one-tenth  to  one-third  of 
the  names  of  these  lists,  and  rarely  have  attained  one-half.2  The 
voters  take  a very  mild  interest  in  public  affairs,  and  commonly 
vote  according  to  instructions,  venality  being  frequent  and  often 
overt.  The  galantuomini,  a genre  of  gentlemen  of  leisure,  exercise 
control  of  the  communes  and  are  preoccupied  to  keep  the  con- 
tadini dependent  and  uneducated.  The  latter,  in  turn,  have  but 
little  patriotism  and  resent  military  service.3 

An  evidence,  in  many  countries,  of  the  extent  to  which  an  upper 
class  acknowledges  a responsibility  for  the  unfortunate  or  ad- 
herence to  the  ideal  of  equalization  of  opportunity  is  to  be  found 
in  the  gifts  made,  as  by  bequest,  to  appropriate  social  institutions. 
In  South  Italy  no  such  tradition  exists.  The  rich  die,  but  the  call 
is  again,  Long  live  the  rich ! Whoever  is  curious  may  read  in  the 
Italian  yearbooks  what  sums  are  destined  to  philanthropic  uses. 
He  will  find  that  for  the  entire  quarter  century  ending  in  1905  the 
total  of  these  sums  in  Basilicata  — not  the  annual  average  — 
reached  less  than  three  lire  per  capita,  in  Sicily  less  than  five  lire, 
in  Calabria  actually  less  than  one  and  one-half  lire ! 4 

We  may  be  spared  a summary  of  this  long  analysis  of  produc- 
tion and  living  in  the  South.  Nature  and  man  together,  man 
most  of  all,  man  through  the  preservation  of  out-of-date  customs 
and  institutions,  these  have  so  wrought  together  that  life  without 
a change  became  unbearable. 

1 A.  Gallenga,  Italy  Revisited  (2  vols.,  2d  ed.,  London,  1876),  ii,  p.  374. 

2 Inch.  Pari.,  v',  p,  161;  cf.  v",  p.  685. 

3 Ibid.,  v!i,  pp.  571,  686  ff.;  vi",  p.  514. 

4 The  twenty-five  year  figures  I take  from  Annuario  Statistic 0 Ilaliano,  1905-07, 
i,  p.  227.  No  later  figures  appear  till  those  for  1912,  when  the  per  capita  gifts  in 
Basilicata  were  only  0.32  lira,  in  Sicily  1.01  lire,  in  Calabria  2.08  lire.  See  Annuario, 
1913,  p.  64.  Cf.  Inch.  Pari.,  v11,  p.  607. 


SOUTH  ITALY.  PEOPLE  AND  EMIGRATION 


IOI 


A lower  disaffected  class,  seeing  before  it  no  established  avenues 
of  improvement,  has  often  sought  its  ends  by  collective  force  — 
by  revolution  or  strike.  For  South  Italy  the  thesis  would  prob- 
ably hold  that,  till  recently,  the  mass  of  the  people  were  too  re- 
signed to  their  secular  misery  to  be  in  any  very  active  sense 
disaffected.  A clear-sighted  minority  had  often  enough  won 
converts  and  provoked  revolutionary  outbreaks.1  But  even  the 
revolution  which  deposed  the  Bourbons  was  no  mighty  stirring  of 
a mass.  If  in  subsequent  decades  there  has  been  a labor  move- 
ment, it  has,  except  for  one  episode,  generally  had  an  aspect  of 
meagerness.  On  the  continent  strikes  have  been  few.  In  Sicily, 
in  the  early  nineties  came  the  semi-revolutionary  outbreak  of  the 
Fasci,  organizations  demanding  such  various  things  as  tax  reform, 
laws  on  the  disposition  of  communal  lands,  increase  of  wages, 
betterments  in  agricultural  contracts,  and  subdivision  of  the 
latifundia.2  Blood  flowed  freely  before  it  was  put  down,  but 
gradually  its  main  demands  in  a softened  form  were  urged  again 
by  new  organizations,  commonly  called  leagues  of  resistance, 
with  many  thousands  of  members,  chiefly  in  the  province  of  Pa- 
lermo. These  new  associations  include  small  proprietors,  tenants, 
and  common  laborers;  and  their  greatest  achievement  has  been 
the  origination  of  those  collective  and  partly  cooperative  tenancies 
of  large  estates  to  which  reference  has  already  been  made.  This 
has  been  in  Sicily.  Even  now  almost  no  organization  of  contadini 
has  developed  in  Calabria  and  Basilicata,  and  the  agrarian  strike 
is  mainly  an  affair  of  the  North.3 

1 In  that  treasure  house  of  observations  by  a learned  traveller,  Brief e iiber  Kala- 
brien  und  Sizilien  (3  vols.,  Gottingen,  1787),  its  author,  J.  H.  Bartels,  frequently 
praised  the  attitude  of  those  he  met.  He  wrote  (i,  p.  277)  near  Nicastro,  “ I find 
here  people  of  the  brightest  intelligence.  Under  the  cruel  yoke  which  hangs  upon 
their  necks,  it  is  naturally  hard  for  them  to  raise  their  heads.  But  their  means  of 
supporting  the  yoke,  and  the  courage  which  constantly  animates  them,  is  the  most 
eloquent  evidence  of  their  intelligence.  You  will  never  find  a Calabrian  giving  way 
to  cowardly  sobs.  He  will  complain  to  you  of  his  burden,  but  he  paints  you  his 
picture  with  such  exactness  that  you  are  forced  to  admit  that  he  sees  to  the  bottom, 
and  though  he  bends  under  his  burden  because  a sword  hangs  over  his  head,  he  tries 
at  the  same  time  to  discover  ways  and  means  of  freeing  himself  from  the  burden.” 

5 See  the  analysis  of  N.  Colajanni,  Gli  avvenimenti  di  Sicilia  e le  loro  cause, 
Palermo,  1894. 

3 On  the  labor  movement  in  Sicily,  see  the  account  in  Inch.  Pari.,  vi",  pp.  633- 


102 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


While  the  strike  seeks  a smaller  economic  gain  and  presupposes 
a continuance  of  patriotic  ties,  emigration  seeks  a large  economic 
gain  and  implies  a readiness  to  sever  (or  to  loosen)  patriotic  ties. 
It  is  simpler  and  may  seem  surer  than  revolution;  it  is  more 
satisfactory  for  the  individual.  It  is  the  method  of  the  outlaw; 
brigandage  in  Basilicata  and  Calabria,  it  is  credibly  said,  was  abol- 
ished less  by  the  carabinieri  than  by  emigration.  But  it  is  also  the 
method  of  the  miserable  man  whose  patriotic  or  civic  ties,  being 
slender,  are  easily  sundered  — whose  fatherland  is  whatever 
country  will  give  him  his  bread.  The  act  of  emigration  begins  as 
a renunciation  of  country,  a preference  for  another  land’s  social 
ladder.  It  easily  “ grows  upon  itself,”  because  later  emigrants 
find  cherished  social  ties  awaiting  them  in  the  new  country,  and 
because,  also,  the  picture  of  better  things  allures  more  insistently 
when,  through  emigrated  friends  abroad  and  common  rumor  at 
home,  it  is  the  oftener  presented  to  the  mind. 

There  have  been  two  fountain  heads  of  emigration  from  South 
Italy,  Basilicata  and  Campania.  From  some  communes  it  has 
taken  its  course  for  half  a century  or  more,  and  when  Carpi’s 
figures  began  to  be  collected,  in  1869,  a rapid  increase  was  under 
way.  Even  in  these  early  days  — nay,  characteristically  in  them 
— one  of  those  specialized  types  was  present  which  stand  forth  in 
a certain  romantic  relief  in  Italian  emigration,  the  wandering  musi- 
cians of  Viggiano  — “ so  universal  is  there  the  art  of  harmony,” 
wrote  Rossi.1  As  the  song  runs: 

Harp  on  my  shoulder, 

From  Viggiano  I come. 

All  the  world  is  my  home.2 

And  indeed  they  went  everywhere,  to  Spain,  France,  Asia,  Africa; 
I have  talked  with  them  on  the  boats  in  Boston  Harbor.  Often 
they  went  as  children,  too  often  in  the  charge  of  speculators,  so 

657.  On  the  agrarian  strike,  see  de  Rocquigny,  Lignes  ct  greves  de  paysans,  Paris, 
1904. 

1 E.  P.  Rossi,  p.  65.  Even  today  Viggiano  lies  some  36  miles  from  the  railway. 

2 L’arpa  al  collo  — son  Viggianese  — tutto  il  mondo  e mio  paese.  See  Inch. 
Pari.,  v',  p.  82. 


SOUTH  ITALY.  PEOPLE  AND  EMIGRATION  103 

becoming  one  of  the  chief  examples  of  child  slavery  developed  in 
this  emigration.1 

From  the  mountains,  as  at  once  the  poorest  and  the  most 
populous  part  of  Basilicata,  emigration  began  and  long  continued 
before  other  sections  were  aroused.  Remoteness  of  destination 
was  no  bar,  and  Argentina  and  Brazil  were  favorite  early  goals, 
the  United  States  soon  supervening  as  the  goal  par  excellence.  It 
was  mainly  a permanent  emigration,  of  day  laborers,  small  pro- 
prietors, and  tenants.  Gradually  the  hill  districts  of  Basilicata 
and  Calabria  became  involved,  and  only  very  slowly  the  coast 
zone,  with  its  large  estates  and  meager  population.  In  fact,  there 
are  important  areas  of  the  coast  where  emigration  is  still  in  its 
first  phases.  Once  begun,  the  exodus  from  Basilicata  never  ap- 
preciably slackened,  soon  attaining  a ratio  to  population  second 
only  to  that  in  Venetia.  But  this  was  a permanent  emigration, 
and  it  did  not  take  long  before  a sheer  decline  set  in  in  the  popu- 
lation of  the  mountains,  while  that  on  the  coast  continued  to 
grow.  In  the  first  ten  years  of  the  twentieth  century,  the  average 
annual  emigration  from  Basilicata  was  three  per  cent  of  the  popu- 
lation, and  the  region  stood  forth  as  the  most  notable  instance  in 
Italy  of  a decline  of  population  due  to  emigration.  From  the 
start  this  continental  emigration  contained  many  women  and 
children.  The  phenomenon  has  been  present  of  the  father  going 
first  and  later  sending  for  his  family;  so  the  province  of  Cosenza, 
having  an  old  emigration,  shows  a smaller  proportion  of  men  than 
that  of  Reggio,  which  started  later  in  the  race.  Superposed  in  the 
recent  period  has  been  the  tendency  to  return  home  after  two  to 
five  years  abroad,  and  presently  to  emigrate  again;  and  this  once 
more  has  been  a movement  of  men  alone.2 * 

With  surprising  slowness,  considering  its  adjacency  to  Calabria, 
Sicily  became  a land  of  emigration,  and  when  that  happened  it 
was  upon  terms  which  suggested  an  independent  impulse.  The 

1 “ More  merciful  than  the  heavens  and  men  is  the  earth  which  gives  them 
burial,”  wrote  Rossi,  loc.  cit. 

2 See  esp.  Inch.  Pari.,  v‘,  pp.  8 f.,  80,  82  f.,  136,  139,  166  f.,  203,  207,  220,  230; 

v“,  pp.  714,  733  f-5  viii>  PP-  87  f->  93)  I07  f-;  v!ii,  Note  ed  appendici,  pp.  581  f. 


104  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

beginnings  were  in  the  province  of  Palermo,  substantially  distant 
from  the  Calabrian  shore;  the  rest  of  the  island  was  in  the  early 
eighties  not  yet  aroused  from  its  age-long  lethargy.  From  Palermo 
it  continued  with  vigor,  so  that  of  all  the  Sicilian  emigrants  of  the 
last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century,  nearly  half  came  from  that 
province.  Next  it  began  in  Messina  where  probably  the  contagion 
of  Reggio,  across  two  miles  of  straits,  was  more  potent  than  that 
of  Palermo.  Only  with  the  twentieth  century,  however,  did  the 
great  outburst  come.  Then  all  provinces  were  swept  into  a resist- 
less current.  In  their  ratio  to  population  other  South  Italian 
compartments  continued  to  show  a stronger  movement  than 
Sicily,  but  nowhere  was  its  growth  so  prodigiously  rapid  as  in  the 
island.  In  the  year  1906  the  astonishing  total  of  127,000  Sicilian 
emigrants  was  reached.  In  some  regions  the  annual  emigration 
has  been  five  per  cent  of  the  population;  these  are  especially  the 
regions  of  the  interior  where  emigration  began  late  and  the  past 
weighed  most  heavily.  It  is  significant  that  emigration  should 
not  have  originated  where  misery  was  greatest.  It  began  where 
there  was  the  chance  of  saving  enough  money  for  passage  fares 
and  has  best  maintained  itself  where  wages  were  at  a medium 
level.1 

In  its  intensity  the  movement  in  Sicily  has  selected  especially 
the  day  laborers,  next  those  associated  with  the  mezzadria  and 
rent  contracts,  lastly  the  small  proprietors.  Miners  and  various 
operatives  and  artisans  have  been  numerous  also,  the  first  named 
reflecting  the  various  vicissitudes  of  the  sulphur  industry,  the 
rest  in  part  the  consequences  of  the  agricultural  emigration;  and 
both  affected  by  the  contagion  of  the  exodus.  Prominent  latterly 
in  the  secondary  emigration  — if  one  may  so  describe  that  which 
seeks  escape  from  the  consequences  of  the  primary  — have  been 
the  small  bourgeois  proprietors.  Once  they  were  a self-sustaining 
element,  often  owning  estates  of  20,000-30,000  lire,  but  the  in- 

1 At  Caltagirone  the  contadini  said,  “ We  do  not  emigrate  because  we  still  lack 
the  money  needful  for  the  journey;  but  just  as  soon  as  we  have  it  we  shall  go  too.” 
Inch.  Pari.,  vin,  p.  766.  The  population  of  the  Matera  district  of  Basilicata,  living 
in  the  hillside  caves  described  above,  has  scarcely  begun  to  emigrate. 


SOUTH  ITALY.  PEOPLE  AND  EMIGRATION  IO5 

creased  wages  cost  of  working  them  has  consumed  their  margin 
of  profit.1 

The  Sicilians  have  gone  to  North  Africa,  to  South  America,  and 
to  the  United  States.  From  the  first  and  third  of  these  goals 
many  have  returned  to  Sicily,  so  that  it  may  be  said  that  a con- 
siderable portion  of  the  emigration  is  temporary  only.  But  this  is 
another  way  of  saying  that  largely  if  not  mainly  the  emigration 
has  the  appearance  of  being  permanent,  and  only  its  recency 
makes  hazardous  a stronger  description.2 

1 A proprietor  of  Termini  Imerese  said,  “ I was  at  Cairo  for  twenty  years.  First 
I was  a street  vendor,  then  I set  up  a small  shop  and  made  money.  With  my  sav- 
ings I returned  to  Sicily,  built  a little  house  and  bought  land,  but  with  the  high 
price  of  labor  I failed  to  make  both  ends  meet,  so  I shall  have  to  emigrate  again.” 
It  is  a typical  instance.  See  Inch.  Pari.,  vi”,  p.  375.  Cf.  E.  Corbino,  L’emigrazionc 
in  Augusta  (Catania,  1914),  pp.  17  f. 

2 In  general,  on  Sicilian  emigration,  see  Inch.  Pari.,  vi",  pp.  705-730,  761-766. 


CHAPTER  VII 


NORTH  ITALY 

History  has  been  kinder  to  the  populations  of  North  Italy  than  to 
those  of  the  South.  Though  battle  fields  have  been  in  every  part 
and  foreign  princes  have  established  their  rule  and  their  institu- 
tions, the  buoyant  life  of  the  region  has  withstood  all  harassings 
and  been  ever  ready  to  reassume  its  autonomy.  Feudalism 
effected  an  entrance,  but  its  wedge  never  penetrated  so  deeply  as 
in  the  South;  the  massive  opposition  of  a powerful  communal 
tradition  prevented  that.  An  unrivalled  situation  for  foreign 
trade  gained  for  the  region  those  riches  which  could  allow  the 
development  of  a staunch  and  varied  civilization.  Even  in  its 
decay,  the  republic  of  Venice  showed  no  such  demoralization  as 
did  the  South  in  the  reign  of  the  Bourbons.  Lombardy,  under  the 
thumb  of  Austria,  while  the  victim  of  abounding  afflictions,  con- 
tinued to  grow  in  industry  and  agriculture.  The  new  Italian 
kingdom,  finally,  though  it  outdid  the  old  regime  in  the  levying  of 
heavy  taxes,  greatly  stimulated  and  indeed  directly  aided  the 
industrial  advance  of  the  North  at  the  expense  of  that  of  the 
South;  its  contracts  were  carried  out  there,  its  tariff  policy  gave 
to  the  North  a southern  market.1 

In  these  circumstances  an  account  of  the  causes  of  emigration 
from  the  North  cannot  show  such  profound  economic  disorders 
and  maladjustments  and  such  extremities  of  poverty  as  wrere 
described  for  the  South.  The  picture  loses  in  vivid  prominence  of 
fine,  but  at  the  same  time  changes  in  character,  presently  portray- 
ing a type  of  emigration  in  many  ways  different  from  that  of  the 
South. 

1 For  an  excellent  statistical  comparison  of  the  well-being  and  advantages  of 
North  and  South,  see  C.  Gini,  L’ammontare  e la  composizione  della  ricchezza  delle 
nazioni  (Turin,  19x4),  pp.  277-300.  Cf.  G.  Mortara,  “ Numeri  indici  dello  stato  e 
del  progresso  economico  delle  regioni  italiane,”  in  Giornale  degli  Economist i,  July, 
19x3,  pp.  17-29;  and  F.  S.  Nitti,  La  ricchezza  dell'  Italia  (Naples,  1904),  pp.  116- 
126  and  passim. 

106 


NORTH  ITALY 


10  J 


Venetia,  Lombardy,  and  Piedmont  are  the  three  major  compart- 
ments of  Northern  emigration.  Including,  as  they  do,  nearly  all 
the  territory  of  the  continental  North,  and  displaying  a char- 
acteristic configuration  of  hills  and  high  mountains,  plain  and 
seacoast,  they  may  serve,  for  the  purposes  of  this  essay,  as  fairly 
typical  of  such  adjoining  compartments  as  Liguria  and  Emilia; 
and  we  may  therefore  confine  our  study  to  them.  Though  their 
industrial  development  has  been  much  greater  than  that  of  the 
South,  an  explanation  of  their  emigration,  as  of  that  of  the  South, 
is  to  be  found  first  of  all  in  the  ways  and  circumstances  in  which 
agriculture  is  carried  on.1 

In  one  important  respect  the  climate  is  much  more  favorable 
for  agriculture  than  that  of  the  South.  The  number  of  days  in 
which  precipitation  occurs  is  about  the  same,  the  amount  of  pre- 
cipitation is  not  much  greater,  but  — a true  boon  — the  rainfall 
comes  generally  in  the  spring  and  summer.  Hence,  a wide  choice 
of  crops,  vigorous  growth,  a soil  responsive  to  fertilizer,  intensive 
cultivation. 

But  if  this,  in  general  terms,  is  the  situation,  other  factors, 
varying  according  to  locality,  make  for  different  local  pictures. 
The  high  Alps  lie  across  the  North,  and  between  them  and  the 
plains  the  land  is  greatly  broken.  In  the  heights  the  cold  is  in- 
tense and  the  season  of  enforced  idleness  long.  Much  of  the  soil 
of  Venetia,  Lombardy,  and  Piedmont  is  invincibly  unproductive. 
As  the  altitude  becomes  less,  the  soil  improves,  sometimes  allow- 
ing large  herds  to  graze  or  encouraging  a measure  of  agriculture. 
But  cultivation  is  not  evidence  that  the  land  has  independent 
value;  when  the  return  to  the  farmer  does  not  exceed  what  a 
wage  earner  would  be  paid  for  his  time,  the  land  is  virtually 

1 Though  there  is  diversity  of  recent  political  history  in  the  North  and  only  one 
main  recent  regime  in  the  South  before  unification  (the  Bourbon),  yet  I again  as- 
sume that  it  is  possible  to  study  the  causes  of  emigration  by  a procedure  identical 
for  the  entire  region.  Whoever  studies  only  the  emigration  from  Venetia  and  Lom- 
bardy runs  the  risk  of  overstressing  the  special  abuses  of  the  Austrian  regime. 
Emigration  from  these  regions  has  pretty  constantly  increased  in  the  half  century 
since  that  regime  ended,  and  the  emigration  from  neighboring  Piedmont  and  Liguria 
has  been  comparable  with  that  of  Venetia  and  Lombardy. 


io8 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


without  independent  value  and  its  yield  is  a wage  to  the  culti- 
vator. This  situation  has  been  common  in  the  mountains,  but 
only  occasional  in  the  hills. 

Much  less  than  in  the  South  of  Italy,  but  seriously  enough, 
deforestation  has  had  an  influence  upon  the  conditions  of  agri- 
culture. Its  modern  course  appears  to  have  begun  with  the  ex- 
tension of  roads,  increasing  the  accessibility  of  the  trees.  The 
forests  were  largely  communal,  and  the  continued  exercise  of 
common  rights  worked  for  their  destruction.  Reform  legislation 
of  1811  and  1839,  though  correct  in  principle,  failed  in  applica- 
tion to  check  the  havoc  which  swept  away  not  only  deciduous 
trees,  but,  what  is  worse,  the  evergreens.  Inundations  became 
common,  yet  the  plague  of  malaria  continued  much  less  than  in 
South  Italy.  The  presumption  is  that  the  humidity  decreased; 
if  so,  there  was  accentuation  of  a natural  condition  already 
troublesome.1 

In  fact,  in  the  region  of  the  lower  hills  and  in  the  plain,  the 
summer  is  so  deficient  in  rainfall  that  a veritable  drought  results. 
Sometimes,  as  in  the  province  of  Rovigo,  the  soil  is  rich;  in  gen- 
eral, however,  as  far  as  a natural  element  alone  is  involved,  it  is 
only  mediocre.  And  yet  this  region  is  luxuriant  under  cultivation, 
extraordinarily  luxuriant.  It  is  one  of  the  most  productive  areas 
on  the  earth’s  surface.  It  yields  richly  not  one  crop  but  a notable 
variety,  in  fact,  the  crops,  it  might  almost  be  said,  of  other  cli- 
mates; for  rice  thrives  in  subtropical  conditions  at  a few  hours 
journey  from  the  Alps.  So  eagerly  has  the  area  under  cultivation 
been  extended  that,  over  great  stretches  of  country,  hardly  a 
plant  is  to  be  seen  that  has  not  been  set  out  by  the  hand  of  man  — 
it  is  not  a region  that  a botanist  would  love. 

What  has  so  effectually  overcome  the  dryness  of  much  of  this 
country  is  a system  of  irrigation  that  has  been  nowhere  excelled 
and  rarely  approached  in  the  degree  of  its  perfection.  It  is  in 
Piedmont  and  Lombardy  that  men  have  drawn  the  subsoil  waters 
to  the  surface  and  taken  the  streams  that  flow  down  from  the 
Alps,  especially  the  waters  that  come  from  the  reservoir-lakes  of 

1 The  Inch.  Agr.  contains  many  references  to  the  course  and  consequences  of 
deforestation.  In  particular,  see  vi‘  (Lombardy),  pp.  29-35. 


NORTH  ITALY 


109 


Lombardy,  and  diverting  them  into  an  amazing  network  of  canals 
adjusted  finely  to  slopes  and  grade,  have  spread  their  blessing 
over  the  land.  The  Cistercian  monks  it  was,  of  the  Chiaravalle 
abbey,  that  seven  centuries  ago  began  this  work,  which  succeeding 
generations  have  developed.  Diversity  and  abundance  of  crops 
are  a consequence ; hay  yields  several  cuttings  a year,  and  dairy- 
ing thrives  — “ Whoever  has  meadowland  has  everything,”  says 
the  proverb.1 

In  such  diverse  physical  conditions  as  prevail  in  North  Italy 
there  could  be  no  uniform  scheme  of  relationship  of  men’s  toil  to 
the  land.  Wherever  altitudes  are  considerable,  and  the  surface 
slopes,  and  the  soil  is  reluctant  to  yield,  there  the  small  property 
comes  to  the  fore.  Yet  it  is  again  the  small  property  that  tends 
to  be  synonymous  with  poverty.  In  Venetia  the  greatest  subdi- 
vision of  estates  has  been  in  the  provinces  of  Belluno  and  Udine, 
the  extraordinary  situation  of  which  (as  indicated  in  information 
supplied  by  the  tax  authorities  in  1878)  deserves  to  be  summarized 
here: 2 

Belluno  Udine 

Number  of  proprietors  having  an  income  from  land  of  i-rooo  lire  62,430  200,590 


Number  of  proprietors  having  an  income  from  land  of  roo-iooo 

lire r,54i  7,016 

Number  of  proprietors  having  an  income  from  land  of  more  than 

1000  lire 175  643 

Per  cent  of  proprietors  having  an  income  from  land  of  not  over 

100  lire 97  96 

Average  number  of  hectares  possessed  by  each  proprietor  . . . 4.50  2.40 

Number  of  proprietors  in  each  100  inhabitants 33  45 


The  process  of  subdivision  in  these  provinces  has  gone  forward 
for  a long  time,  facilitated  by  inheritance  customs,  and  made  pos- 
sible in  many  of  the  more  recent  instances  through  savings  from 
emigration.  In  the  nine  years  1871-79,  nearly  two-fifths  of  the 
proprietors  gave  place  to  others,  and  more  than  one-fifth  of  the 

1 Chi  ha  prato  ha  tutto. 

On  the  canals  see  Inch.  Agr.,  ii',  pp.  roo-104,  and  the  admirable  work  — old, 
but  in  essentials  not  superseded  — of  R.  B.  Smith,  Italian  Irrigation,  2 vols.,  2d 
ed.,  Edinburgh  and  London,  r8ss. 

* Inch.  Agr.  ivn  (Venetia),  p.  305;  figures  are  given  for  other  provinces  also. 


I IO 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


rural  acreage  changed  hands.  This,  to  be  sure,  was  a period  in 
which  much  of  the  ecclesiastical  land  was  sold,  but  the  whole 
amount  of  such  land  sold  before  1881  was  less  than  two  per  cent 
of  the  cultivable  area  of  Venetia;  what  is  striking  is  rather  that 
the  average  lot  sold  in  this  way  was  only  a little  more  than  two 
hectares,  the  lowest  for  all  Italy.  In  recent  decades,  disposal 
of  communal  lands  has  added  greatly  to  the  number  of  small 
properties. 

Of  the  mountainous  part  of  Lombardy,  Jacini  wrote  that  nearly 
every  family  owned  land  and  often  owned  more  than  one  strip.1 
In  such  a region  the  land  would  not  be  cultivated  at  all  unless  by 
its  owner.  Slight  as  is  the  yield  of  the  soil,  it  would  be  much  less 
if  the  tillers,  generation  after  generation,  had  not  taken  out  its 
rocks,  walled  up  the  steep  places  and  with  daily  care  followed  the 
course  of  the  crops.  Even  in  the  hill  country  of  the  province  of 
Milan  small  properties  abound,  the  large  majority  of  which 
extend  to  less  than  one  hectare  in  size.2 

Again  in  Piedmont,  in  its  mountains  and  little  less  in  its  hills, 
given  the  protection  of  the  Code  Napoleon  and  the  general  passion 
of  the  people  to  become  proprietors,  the  land  has  become  greatly 
subdivided.  Speculators  who  in  the  first  instance  acquired  the 
lands  of  the  Church  and  of  the  towns  sold  them  in  small  lots.  And 
when  many  patrician  families  were  forced  by  political  events  to 
dispose  of  portions  of  their  lands,  increasing  subdivision  followed. 
It  is  in  the  provinces  of  Cuneo,  Torino,  and  Alessandria  that  the 
process  has  gone  farthest.3 

In  none  of  these  northern  compartments  does  the  property  of 
medium  size  obtain  widely.  Historical  forces  have  not  made  for  its 
increase.  Here  and  there  among  the  lower  hills  only,  especially  in 
the  vicinity  of  large  cities,  it  is  to  be  found,  the  means  to  its  con- 
stitution having  often  come  from  gains  made  in  industry  and 
trade. 

1 Inch.  Agr.,  vi*,  p.  43. 

2 A.  Serpieri,  II  conlratto  agrario  e le  condizioni  dei  contadini  nell’  Alto  Milanese 
(Milan,  1910),  p.  45. 

3 Inch.  Agr.,  viii',  pp.  441-455;  Baldioli-Chiorando,  pp.  846-848. 


NORTH  ITALY 


III 


Commonly  when  land  is  not  in  a small  parcel  it  is  in  a large  or 
a great  estate_,  typically  120-400  hectares  in  size.  Then  arises  a 
situation  which  we  have  already  deplored  in  South  Italy.  Many 
of  the  proprietors  in  the  hilly  country  and  the  plains  of  Venetia  do 
not  cultivate  their  lands  directly.  When  they  do  not  actually 
live  upon  their  estates  they  are  particularly  unlikely  to  do  so; 
when  they  use  their  estates  merely  as  country  seats,  as  they  often 
do,  it  is  to  keep  their  town  habits  and  avoid  what  would  be  helpful 
contact  with  their  workers.  Nor  is  the  case  of  Piedmont  different. 
When  the  Inchiesta  A gr aria  reported  its  evidence  upon  this  subject, 
it  might  still  have  used  the  English  words  of  that  competent  pa- 
triot, Antonio  Gallenga,  who  had  written,  twenty  years  earlier: 

Whoever  has  land  enough,  or  can  by  any  other  means  eke  out  ever  so 
wretched  an  existence  in  Turin,  will  hardly  think  of  occupying  his  house  at 
Ivrea  or  Pinerolo ; and  whoever  has  a house  at  Ivrea  or  Pinerolo  would  be 
deemed  half  crazy  if  he  lived  at  his  villa  two  or  three  miles  — nay,  half  a 
mile — away  from  other  habitations.  The  landlord  hastens  to  forsake  the 
land,  and  scarcely  ever  graces  the  property  which  supports  him  with  more 
than  a fortnight’s  or  a month’s  visit  in  the  autumn.1 

Most  of  all  it  is  in  the  lowlands  of  Lombardy  that  the  large 
estate,  coupled  with  absenteeism,  has  become  characteristic. 
Indeed,  in  Lower  Lombardy,  absentee  proprietors  have  in  recent 
years  held  about  90  per  cent  of  the  land.2 

The  monks  in  their  extensive  establishments  of  earlier  centuries 
commonly  hired  others  to  cultivate  for  them.  In  the  eighteenth 
century,  especially  in  the  region  east  of  the  Adda,  there  were  many 
small  estates  whose  owners  cultivated  the  grape ; more  and  more 
these  were  absorbed  by  the  large  estates,  and  particularly  as  the 
system  of  irrigation  was  extended.  Napoleon’s  annulment  of  the 
droit  de  majorat , and  the  secularization  of  Church  lands  in  i860 
brought  about  great  changes  in  ownership,  and,  alongside  of  the 
old  nobility  and  the  charitable  corporations  which  continued  to 
control  much  of  the  land,  came  the  new  urban  industrial  classes 
and  the  dealers  of  Milan,  Lodi,  Pavia,  all  persons  commanding 

1 A.  Gallenga,  Country  Life  in  Piedmont  (London,  1858),  p.  88.  Cf.  Inch.  Agr., 
viii1,  pp.  535-538. 

2 F.  Rovelli,  Die  Agrarverfassung  der  Niederlombardei  (Karlsruhe,  1908),  p.  49. 


1 12 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


much  capital  and  able  to  take  the  lands  for  investment.  The  new 
classes,  however,  were  not  more  ready  to  cultivate  directly  than 
the  old.  It  has  continued  to  be  the  case  that,  except  when  they  do 
cultivate,  the  proprietors,  almost  as  a class,  rarely  visit  their 
estates;  and  when  they  do  cultivate,  it  is  to  delegate  the  actual 
work  of  supervision  and  management  to  an  agent.  Many,  it  is 
even  said,  have  never  seen  their  estates  and  know  not  where  they 
are  located,  who  the  tenant  is,  or  what  the  lease  price.1 

To  a large  extent,  taking  North  Italy  as  a whole,  cultivation 
rests  upon  tenancy;  and,  as  elsewhere  in  Italy,  the  forms  of  con- 
tract are  many.  In  this  survey  only  the  principal  ones  may  be 
examined.  The  mezzadria,  survival  of  a notable  antiquity,  holds 
an  important  place  today.  In  Venetia  it  has  persisted  chiefly  in 
the  provinces  of  Belluno  and  Treviso,  even  there,  however,  suffer- 
ing a decline  in  recent  decades;  excessive  cultivation  of  grain, 
insufficient  employment  of  — or  scope  for  — intensive  methods, 
seem  to  explain  its  fall  from  popularity.  In  Piedmont  the  con- 
tract had  a much  wider  development  in  the  first  than  in  the  second 
half  of  the  past  century.  It  was  widespread  in  the  provinces  of 
Cuneo  and  Torino,  least  prevalent  in  the  mountains,  common  in 
the  hills,  abundant  in  the  lowlands.  At  the  time  when  Arthur 
Young,  travelling  through  Lombardy,  described  and  disprized  it, 
its  vogue  was  great.  At  one  time,  in  fact,  it  had  been  almost 
alone.  But,  here  too,  it  declined  subsequently,  even  in  the  hilly, 
non-irrigated  parts  where  it  had  chiefly  obtained.  The  tenants 
got  into  debt  with  the  landlords,  who  appear  themselves  to  have 
tried  to  preserve  the  contract.  By  a reporter  of  the  Inchiesta 
Agraria  its  decline  was  associated  with  the  slow  but  constant  dis- 
integration of  the  patriarchal  family  to  which  it  had  been  best 
suited.  The  Countess  Martinengo  Cesaresco,  a witness  to  many 
of  the  changes  which  the  contract  underwent  in  Lombardy,  held 
that  it  could  survive  only  where  there  was  “ an  intense  power  of 
work  and  a primitive  conception  of  life.”2  The  pure  type  of  the 
mezzadria,  as  developed  in  Tuscany,  has  been  rare  in  North 

1 Inch.  Agr.,  vi',  passim;  Rovelli,  pp.  45-52;  Serpieri,  pp.  49  f. 

2 Countess  E.  Martinengo  Cesaresco,  Lombard  Studies  (London,  1902),  p.  197. 


NORTH  ITALY 


H3 

Italy.  Sometimes  more  than  half  the  product,  sometimes  less,  has 
gone  to  the  tenant,  and  the  form  which  his  own  contribution  to  the 
production  has  taken  has  been  equally  changeful.1 

A variable  form  of  agreement  frequently  to  be  met  in  the  North 
is  the  mixed  contract  ( contralto  misto).  Under  it  the  tenant  gives 
a portion  of  his  product  — of  wheat,  for  example  — to  the  pro- 
prietor, and  a money  payment  also.  Sundry  services  and  dues, 
survivals  of  a feudal  custom,  have  also  been  rendered,  but  these 
have  in  recent  years  been  declining,  the  tendency  being  to  a 
sharper  separation  of  landlord  and  tenant.2 

The  small  or  medium  lease  at  a fixed  rental  in  product  or  money 
has  become  increasingly  common.  In  lower  Venetia  are  many 
examples  of  leases  of  estates  of  twenty  to  fifty  hectares,  which  are 
sometimes  further  sublet.  Such  contracts  have  not  usually  been 
recorded  in  writing  and  have  been  tacitly  renewed  at  the  end  of 
the  year.  Although  a change  of  tenancy  has  been  easy,  contracts 
have  generally  been  renewed,  and  there  are  instances  in  which  the 
same  tenant  has  cultivated  for  as  long  as  fifty  years.  In  some 
places,  as  in  the  province  of  Milan,  the  leased  land  is  a kind  of 
appendage  to  the  laborer’s  house  and  is  worked  by  his  family 
while  he  is  employed  in  the  expanding  manufacturing  enterprises 
of  the  region.3 

In  the  Lombard  plain  and  in  part  of  Piedmont,  the  large  lease 
has  been  usual,  corresponding  with  the  large  estates  above  con- 
sidered. The  leaseholder  has  belonged  to  the  middle  class  and 
has  brought  to  bear  a considerable  though  mainly  traditional 
agricultural  competence.  He  makes  a contract  not  essentially 
different  in  its  terms  from  one  of  four  centuries  earlier.  He  may 

1 On  the  mezzadria,  see  Inch.  Agr.,  iv",  pp.  444-450;  vi‘,  pp.  79-81,  133; 
viii*,  p.  548;  I contraili  agrarii  (tit.),  pp.  46-48,  124-127,  242-245;  Gallenga, 
Country  life,  etc.,  p.  91;  L.  Jarach,  “Dell’  emigrazione  delle  donne  e dei  minorenni 
bellunesi  nel  Trentino  e nel  Tirolo  meridionale,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1912,  No.  12,  pp.  47- 
86;  Grizi,  pp.  63-66. 

2 I contratti  agrarii,  pp.  53-55,  249  f.;  Serpieri,  p.  309;  Martinengo  Cesaresco, 
p.  201. 

3 Serpieri,  p.  351;  Inch.  Agr.,  iv",  pp.  451-468;  I contratti  agrarii,  pp.  48-53, 
128-131,  245-248;  Variazioni  del  fitto,  pp.  1-96;  G.  Cavaglieri,  “ L’emigrazione 
dal  Polesine  (1881-1901),”  Riforma  Sociale,  October  15  and  November  15,  1902, 
pp.  1036  f. 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


114 

not  sublet,  he  may  make  no  betterments  except  on  written  power, 
and  he  pays  an  annual  rental  for  an  agreed  space  of  nine,  twelve, 
or  eighteen  years,  commonly  for  nine  years,  following  this  term  by 
a renewal  for  an  equal  period.  Since  he  is  in  charge  of  an  ex- 
tremely complicated  system  of  agriculture,  the  leaseholder  in  the 
irrigated  plain  has  of  necessity  the  qualities  of  a skilled  manager. 
Mainly  to  his  capacities  and  energies  is  due  the  extraordinary 
development  of  this  region. 

In  the  course  of  time  such  a tenant  of  the  large  estate  is  usually 
succeeded  by  his  own  son.  After  the  agricultural  crisis  of  the  early 
eighties,  which  induced  a substitution  of  rice  culture  and  fodder 
for  grain,  the  class  of  tenants  developed  a more  characteristically 
capitalist  bent,  became  more  genuinely  entrepreneurs,  and  even 
formed  associations  of  their  professional  kind.1 

Such,  in  bare  outline,  is  the  form  which  the  agricultural  system 
of  the  North  takes.  On  its  fitness  for  accomplishing  its  own  pur- 
poses, a word  must  next  be  said. 

It  is  possible  to  write  much  in  praise  of  the  small  property  as 
such  and  yet  necessary  to  point  out  serious  faults  in  the  institution 
as  it  has  developed  in  North  Italy.  In  Udine,  Sondrio,  and  the 
other  mountainous  regions,  with  their  short  season  and  stony  soil, 
the  ordinary  small  estate  cannot  yield  enough  to  allow  even  mod- 
erate comfort  in  living.  If  such  Lilliputian  holdings  are  to  be 
regretted,  still  more  is  the  irrational  mode  of  their  subdivision  to 
be  deplored. 

“ A father,”  wrote  Jacini,  “ who  left  to  his  three  sons  a property  of  six 
hectares,  constituted  of  three  equal  parts,  one  of  meadow,  one  of  arable  land, 
and  one  of  chestnut  grove,  could  not  assign  one  such  part  to  each  son,  even 
though  the  parts  were  equal  in  value,  because  it  would  be  needful  to  give  to 
each  a portion  of  field,  of  meadow,  and  of  grove,  in  order  that  each  could  meet 
the  demands  of  his  own  domestic  economy;  . . . since  meadow,  field,  and 
grove  are  in  different  places,  half  the  day  may  be  spent  by  the  cultivating 
proprietor  in  going  from  one  place  to  another,  as  he  must  when  different  tasks 
have  to  be  performed  at  the  same  time.”2 

Cottage,  barn,  and  the  rest  are  similarly  divided.  Small  wonder 
then  that  backward  methods  of  production  prevail,  even  in  places 


1 Rovelli,  pp.  49-78. 


2 Inch.  Agr.,  vi‘,  p.  44. 


NORTH  ITALY 


115 

where  the  soil  is  comparatively  rich.  Small  wonder  that  the 
owners  become  litigious,  accepting  the  fact  of  their  proverb— in 
this  country  of  proverbs  — “who  owns  land  must  fight.”  1 

In  North  Italy,  at  least,  the  mezzadria  contract,  as  already  indi- 
cated, has  been  in  declining  favor.  For  the  proprietor  it  has  been 
insufficiently  productive.  This  has  been  partly  because,  as  Gal- 
lenga  long  ago  pointed  out,  the  master  has  been  unintelligent  and 
has  illiberally  refused  to  make  improvements.2  But  it  has  also 
been  because  the  proprietor,  even  when  his  improvements  might 
sdon  be  remunerative,  has  refused  to  make  them,  for  the  reason 
that  only  half  their  product  would  go  to  him.  Correspondingly, 
the  tenant  would  spare  his  oxen,  when  the  soil  was  stubborn, 
rather  than  yield  half  the  product  of  the  costly  extra  effort  to  the 
proprietor;  and  he  would  rarely  himself  undertake  improvements. 
Heavy  demands  are  made  upon  the  proprietor,  who  must  turn  up 
at  all  seasons  when  the  crops  ripen  and  find  a purchaser.  And 
always,  for  the  smaller  crops  at  least,  there  is  the  chance  that  the 
tenant  will  surreptitiously  secrete  some- — it  is  more  than  a desire 
to  pun  that  popularly  makes  the  mezzadro  into  a mezzo-ladro 
(half-thief) . To  these  difficulties  must  be  added  a lack  of  agri- 
cultural knowledge  and  an  insufficient  employment  of  modern 
implements  and  machines.3  While  the  contratto  misto  never 
gives  way  to  the  mezzadria,  supersession  in  the  opposite  direction 
has  been  frequent.  The  proprietor  is  then  encouraged  to  make 
larger  expenditures  for  improvement  of  the  soil  and  the  land  be- 
comes more  productive.  Much  of  the  most  successful  agriculture 
in  North  Italy  has  developed  under  this  contract. 

On  the  small  properties,  whether  worked  by  their  owners  or 
under  some  form  of  contract,  backward  methods  of  production,  it 
may  now  be  said  by  way  of  generalization,  have  been  usual. 
Absolutely  primitive  plows,  harrows,  and  other  tools  have  been 

1 Chi  ha  terra  ha  guerra.  2 Country  Life , etc.,  p.  91. 

3 See,  e.g.,  L.  Garbaglia,  “ Intorno  alia  mezzeria  piemontese  e alia  sua  riforma,” 
Riforma  Sociale,  September-October,  1906,  pp.  688-698.  To  realize  the  defects  of 
this  contract  in  the  North,  one  has  only  to  compare  it  with  the  social,  economic,  and 
technical  conditions  of  success  as  they  were  formulated  by  the  first  Congresso 
Nazionale  della  Mezzadria,  held  at  Bologna,  January,  1913;  see  Bollettino  dell’ 
UJficio  di  Lawro,  February,  1913,  pp.  208  f. 


Il6  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

common,  though  decreasingly  so  in  recent  decades.  On  two- 
thirds  of  the  land  of  the  Lombard  hill  district,  the  plows  were 
reported  by  the  Inchiesta  Agraria  to  be  primitive,  and  less  than 
mediocre  in  accomplishment.1  “ The  plow  has  a colter  of  iron, 
but  the  spade  has  an  edge  of  gold,”  it  is  said;  the  proverb,  how- 
ever, reflects  the  poorness  of  the  plow  as  well  as  the  competence 
of  its  rival  when  managed  by  abundant  human  labor.  Rotation 
and  fertilizers  have  been  modernized  only  slowly  and  only  par- 
tially, and  bookkeeping  has  been  absent. 

The  highest  development  of  agriculture  has  come  under  the 
lease  at  a fixed  rental,  where  the  risk  is  borne  entirely  by  the  ten- 
ant. It  has  been  successful  where  only  one  or  two  main  crops 
have  been  in  question  — as  in  much  of  the  Lombard  plain  — and 
also  in  the  undulating  country  and  where  that  agriculture  prevails 
which  visiting  foreigners  have  so  often  admired:  the  utilization 
of  the  land  for  endless  rows  of  mulberry  trees,  with  a diversified 
agriculture  about  their  bases.  Though  the  saying  is  not  closely 
true  that  “ the  shadow  of  the  mulberry  is  a golden  shadow,” — the 
shadow  being  detrimental,  and  defoliation  and  other  operations 
hindering  the  growth  below  — yet  the  total  production  of  these 
areas  is  much  enhanced  by  such  various  plainting. 

Under  the  smaller  leases,  the  term  of  which  has  commonly  been 
for  a year  only,  the  tenant  is  least  willing  to  apply  capital  of  his 
own.  Where  the  contract’s  duration  is  longest,  care  of  the  land 
is  best.  Even  then,  however,  the  tenant  is  led  to  exploit  the  soil 
in  the  later  stages  of  his  control.  In  Venetia  much  stress  has  been 
laid  on  this  fault.2  Strangely  enough,  even  in  Lower  Lombardy, 
a competent  accounting  system,  with  the  needed  regard  for 
depreciation,  is  rare. 

The  greatest  failing  of  the  tenants  on  the  large  estates  is  that, 
with  a few  praiseworthy  exceptions,  they  still  concern  themselves 
very  slightly  with  the  interests  of  their  workers  — a policy  from 
which  inevitably  the  output  itself  must  suffer.3  Lacking  a per- 
manent tie,  they  have  had  no  permanent  interest.  As  late  as  the 
eighties  the  extensive  lands  of  the  Piedmontese  charitable  cor- 

1 Inch.  Agr.,  vi‘,  p.  70.  3 Rovelli,  p.  72. 

2 Ibid.,  iv",  pp.  451-468;  Cavaglieri,  p.  1037. 


NORTH  ITALY 


ii  7 

porations  were  let  at  auction,  a procedure  unlikely  to  insure  a 
wise  and  sympathetic  management.  A great  farm  has  been  a 
thing  to  be  exploited,  and  its  workers  with  it. 

It  is  clear  that  we  face  here,  as  in  South  Italy,  an  evil  deriving 
from  the  fact  that  those  who  own  the  lands  do  not  cultivate  them. 
The  proprietor  in  business,  the  professions,  government  service, 
or  simply  at  leisure,  has  scorned  the  country.  How  trenchantly 
Cavour  put  the  need  for  a better-knit  rural  society ! 

It  is  difficult  to  measure  justly  how  much  good  can  be  brought  into  a 
community  of  poor  and  ignorant  cultivators  by  a family,  in  easy  circum- 
stances, that  is  conscious  of  its  duties.  This  good  is  not  noisy  or  spectac- 
ular, does  not  receive  the  sounding  approbation  of  the  newspapers,  is  voted 
no  distinction  in  the  academies,  yet  is  non  the  less  far-reaching  in  its  effects.1 

The  few  large  proprietors  who  cultivated  their  estates  did  so 
generally  without  much  competence,  he  indicated;  and,  being 
himself  an  admirable  farmer,  he  spoke  with  authority. 

The  indifferent  proprietor  has  only  reflected  the  general  atti- 
tude of  the  city  towards  the  country.  So  it  has  been  in  Piedmont, 
so  in  Lombardy.  Lombard  history  has  been  a municipal  history, 
in  which  the  rural  classes  have  never  had  a real  place;  the  atti- 
tude towards  them,  whether  of  bourgeoisie  or  patricians,  has  been 
one  of  condescension  and  disesteem  — whereof  a witness  remains 
in  the  general  terms  villano  and  paesano,  common  enough  through- 
out Italy. 

Circumstances  of  production  which  make  for  a scanty  fruitage, 
or  a system  of  production  which  yields  but  slim  rewards  to  many 
of  the  cultivators,  these  largely  account  for  the  hardships  of  living 
which  determine  emigration  to  other  lands.  In  the  pictures  which 
have  been  given  us  of  the  conditions  of  income  and  living  of  the 
agricultural  classes,  particularly  in  the  period  of  rising  emigration, 
we  can  appreciate  these  hardships.  Morpurgo,  author  of  the 
report  on  Venetia  in  the  Inchiesta  Agraria,  quoted  with  approval 
an  earlier  comment  in  these  terms:  “ Happy  that  family  which 
can  end  the  year  without  incurring  indebtedness;  most  rare 

1 From  a letter,  written  in  1844,  cited  in  Inch.  Agr.,  viii‘,  pp.  536-538.  Cf.  E. 
Visconti,  Cavour  agricoltore,  lettere  inedite  di  Camillo  Cavour  a Giacinto  Corio, 
Florence,  1913. 


Il8  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

those  families  which  can  make  any  saving,  and  in  these  last  years 
certainly  none!  ” The  statement  refers  not  only  to  the  Alpine 
proprietors  but  to  the  contract  cultivators  of  the  plain  as  well; 
and  it  is  further  declared  that  the  daily  expenditure  for  each 
member  of  a family,  according  to  a rough  average,  was  only  half 
a lira.1  Concerning  the  Friuli,  land  of  the  small  property,  he 
wrote,  “ From  Ampezzo  down,  all  along  the  mountain,  the  prod- 
uct of  the  soil  gives  a bare  sustenance  to  the  population  for  a part 
of  the  year,  less  than  one-half  and  again,  “We  are  upon  a ter- 
ritory the  cultivation  of  which  ought  at  least  to  keep  the  culti- 
vator alive.  But  if  all  stay  there  is  no  pulling  through.”  2 And 
of  Belluno  similarly,  were  there  no  emigration,  he  held,  “ the 
affirmation  is  sad  but  true:  here  men  would  die  of  starvation. ” 3 
The  small  proprietors  of  that  province  were  gradually  losing  their 
hold.  “ Even  those  proprietors  who,  without  having  been  in  easy 
circumstances,  had  in  the  past  lived  upon  the  earnings  of  their 
lands,  are  today  reduced  to  dolorous  conditions,  and  most  of  their 
lands  are  burdened  with  mortgages.”  4 Not  different,  except 
somewhat  in  degree,  was  the  situation  in  the  other  provinces  of 
Venetia.  For  years  previously  the  value  of  land  had  fallen. 

In  Piedmont  and  Lombardy  the  poverty  of  the  small  proprie- 
tors has  been  little  less  pressing  than  in  upper  Venetia.  “ Very 
assiduous,  sober,  economical  and  well-behaved,”  those  of  Pied- 
mont were  held  to  be,8  but  the  task  of  making  a comfortable 
living  in  the  set  conditions  of  poor  soil,  long  winter,  and  an  unen- 
lightened technique,  lay  beyond  such  qualities. 

Unequal  conditions  have  prevailed  among  those  who  have 
cultivated  the  soil  under  contract.  Nearly  everywhere  the  share 
cultivators  have  had  to  accept  a pittance;  so  in  Venetia,  so  in 
Piedmont,  so  in  Lombardy  — the  conditions  in  recent  years  being 
scarcely  less  oppressive  than  those  of  thirty  years  ago.  Among 
those  who  have  paid  fixed  rentals,  a moderate  prosperity  has  in 
some  regions  existed;  in  others,  suffering  has  followed  unless  the 
profits  from  good  harvests  were  saved  for  the  stress  times  of  poor 

1 Inch.  Agr.,  iv',  p.  116.  4 Ibid.,  iv",  p.  350. 

2 Ibid.,  iv',  pp.  103  f.  Cf.  Cosattini,  p.  72.  6 Ibid.,  viii',  p.  620. 

3 Inch.  Agr.,  iv',  p.  20. 


NORTH  ITALY 


119 

years;  and  sometimes  the  conditions  have  been  unmitigatedly 
bad  for  years  on  end.  Like  the  small  proprietors,  the  contract 
cultivators  have  been  among  the  sufferers  from  severe  blights  in 
the  nineteenth  century,  from  the  coming,  for  example,  of  the 
o'idium,  after  1850,  which  destroyed  all  the  vines  of  Lombardy, 
later  from  the  phylloxera ; and,  not  less  seriously,  from  the  appear- 
ance of  a disease  afflicting  the  silkworm  which  would  have  quite 
destroyed  the  silk-raising  industry  had  not  more  resistant  breeds 
been  brought  to  Italy  from  the  ports  of  Japan,  newly  opened  to 
trade  and  civilization.1 

When  the  condition  of  proprietor  or  contract  cultivator  is  at  its 
lowest  it  can  generally  be  assimilated  to  that  of  the  hired  laborer. 
In  Friuli,  when  not  merely  a harvest  hand,  the  hired  laborer  is 
the  sottano  or  underling.  Paying  an  annual  rental  which,  in  the 
first  years  of  the  present  century,  ran  to  about  one  hundred  lire, 
he  receives  from  his  master  the  use  of  a miserable  hut  and  of  a 
plot  of  land  sufficient  in  good  years  — and  then  only  — to  pro- 
vide his  dependents  with  polenta.  He  and  one  or  two  members  of 
his  family  must  be  ready  at  any  time  to  work  for  the  master  for  a 
wage  sometimes  under  a lira  per  day,  which  may  be  credited  to 
rent.  His  pig  is  his  savings  bank,  which  at  the  end  of  the  year 
enables  him  to  pay  the  balance  of  his  rent.  Attached  to  the  large 
property,  he  has  little  liberty  of  movement,  renouncing,  in  ex- 
change for  steadiness  of  place,  the  chance  to  do  harvest  work  at 
the  high  wages  received  by  independent  workers.  In  a similar 
condition  is  the  boaro,  different  only  in  that  no  part  of  his  income 
is  paid  in  money.  A sheer  insufficiency  of  food  is  less  common 
than  formerly;  and  employment  is  surer,  except  for  the  unsuc- 
cessful worker  to  whom  it  may  presently  be  refused  altogether. 
Morpurgo  wrote  of  the  group,  that  their  arms  exceeded  the 
demand  for  them  and  their  mouths  the  means  of  subsistence.2 

Although  the  name  sottano  is  not  current  in  Belluno,  Treviso, 
and  Venetia,  the  hired  class  abounds,  and  is  similarly  circum- 
stanced, being  a kind  of  permanent  proletariat.  The  unattached 

1 On  these  blights,  see  Inch.  Agr.,  iv',  pp.  60-63;  Martinengo  Cesaresco, 
pp.  216  f. 

2 Inch.  Agr.,  iv',  pp.  14-16;  see  also  pp.  63,  104.  Cf.  Cosattini,  pp.  74  f. 


120 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


worker  is  commoner  than  in  Udine.  In  Rovigo  the  class  was  said 
to  be  generally  in  debt  until  the  middle  nineties;  thereafter,  under 
increasingly  felt  needs,  to  be  still  discontented.1 

In  Piedmont  the  laborers  hired  by  the  day  were  held  to  con- 
stitute, three  or  four  decades  ago,  a fifth  part  of  the  agricultural 
population,  and  its  most  wretched  part.  Though  wages  had  risen 
in  previous  years,  it  was  still  almost  impossible  to  live  by  work 
alone ; hence  frequent  abandonment  of  an  employer  before  ad- 
vances could  be  repaid,  and  many  agricultural  thefts,  and  the 
absence  of  any  relationship  of  affection  between  master  and 
worker.2 

Not  otherwise  has  been  the  situation  in  Lombardy.  Bread  may 
be  got  more  surely  in  the  plains  than  in  the  hills,  but  even  the 
best  paid  contadino  obbligato  is  always  at  the  beck  of  his  employer 
and  passively  obeys  orders.  He  readily  changes  his  abode  as  the 
size  of  his  family  changes,  or  for  other  reasons,  and  all  cordiality 
toward  his  employer  is  lacking.  His  family  is  scattered  over  the 
fields  in  the  summer,  in  the  winter  is  housed  with  other  families. 
Below  this  group  in  condition  are  the  unattached  day  laborers; 
above  it  are  sundry  more  specialized  types.  The  dampness  of  the 
farmhouses,  the  unhygienic  presence  in  them  of  the  farm  animals, 
recall  the  houses  of  the  mountains.  “ So  they  have  been  for  two 
hundred  years,  so  may  they  stay  a little  longer,”  was  the  pro- 
prietors’ attitude  as  recorded  by  the  Inchiesta  Agraria.  The 
improvements  in  earning  and  living  conditions  which  have  come 
in  the  last  thirty-five  years,  somewhat  in  response  to  legislation, 
have  been  meager  enough.3 

Much  of  what  has  been  written  of  the  tax  system  of  South  Italy 
holds  of  the  North.  The  same  heavy  land  tax  has  existed,  heavier, 

1 Inch.  Agr.,  iv',  pp.  18,  20,  24,  64;  Cavaglieri,  pp.  1043  f. 

2 Inch.  Agr.,  viii',  pp.  621,  624,  805,  065. 

3 Ibid.,  vi',  pp.  139-143,  151-155;  Mosso,  pp.  129!.;  Serpieri,  passim;  E.  Conti, 
La  proprietd  fondiaria  nel  passato  e nel  presente  (Milan,  1905),  Pt.  ii;  Rovelli, 
passim,  esp.  pp.  78-123.  The  study  by  Rovelli,  particularly  thorough  and  illumi- 
nating, follows  competently,  despite  its  narrower  scope,  upon  the  classic  early  work 
of  S.  Jacini,  La  pro prietd  fondiaria  e le  popolazioni  agricole  in  Lombardia,  Milan, 
1857,  which  has  been  available  to  me  only  in  the  German  translation  of  like  date, 
published  in  Milan  and  elsewhere. 


NORTH  ITALY 


121 


it  would  seem,  than  any  beyond  the  Alps,  and  the  same  great  in- 
creases in  the  provincial  and  communal  rates  have  taken  place. 
At  the  time  of  the  Inchiesta  Agraria,  the  grist  tax  was  deeply 
resented,  while  there  was  rejoicing  at  the  disappearance  of  the  old 
Austrian  testatico,  a kind  of  poll  tax.  Recently  the  catastal 
reforms  have  reduced  much  of  the  inequality  of  burden  that  had 
prevailed.  Certain  specially  exasperating  taxes,  like  that  on  farm 
animals,  and  many  local  import  duties,  have  been  abolished.  The 
weight  of  taxes  in  general  has  been  much  more  bearable  than  in 
the  South,  because  of  the  greater  well-being  of  the  people  and  the 
ampler  range  of  objects  of  taxation.  Not  least,  the  pronouncedly 
higher  level  of  general  intellectual  equipment  and  accomplish- 
ment has  made  for  more  wisdom  in  expenditure.  To  enter  upon 
an  examination  of  the  respects  in  which  the  taxes  constitute  a 
burden  upon  the  classes  of  people  that  emigrate  would  be  to  repeat 
essentially  the  argument  detailed  above,  to  which  a reference  may 
suffice. 

We  are  concerned  with  a population  that,  by  and  large,  stands 
well  above  that  of  South  Italy.  As  regards  wages  and  employ- 
ment, farm  contracts,  housing,  dress,  food,  the  conditions,  low  as 
they  are,  could  be  worse.  The  pellagra  has  never  been  compa- 
rable with  the  southern  malaria  in  its  ravages.  A better  clergy,  a 
religion  less  suffused  with  superstition  than  in  the  South,  have 
allowed  the  growth  of  a more  liberal  spirit.  And  the  school  sys- 
tem is  better  — though  gravely  defective  still,  and  constituting 
one  of  the  most  vexatious  problems  of  the  entire  region.  In  the 
days  of  the  Inchiesta  Agraria  the  rural  schools  were  generally 
attended  only  in  the  winter  months,  irregularly  at  that,  and  with 
little  profit,  partly  because  of  the  remoteness  of  the  schoolhouses, 
partly  because  of  the  parents’  need  of  utilizing  the  labor  of  their 
children.  The  newer  conditions  are  better,  a little.  But  even  in 
so  favorably  placed  a region  as  the  province  of  Upper  Milan  the 
communes  generally  provide  only  the  elementary  inferior  course, 
poorly  attended  after  the  winter  months  — - indeed  from  the 
moment  when  cocoon  raising  begins  — and  taught  mainly  by 
women  who  rarely  have  less  than  sixty  or  seventy  pupils.  Under 


122 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


these  circumstances,  in  this  region,  there  are  few  who  do  not  learn 
to  write  their  names,  but  many  who  carry  away  only  a meager 
knowledge  of  other  things,  that  is  soon  forgotten.1 

What  has  so  far  been  said  points  clearly  to  conditions  which 
many  persons  must  desire  to  escape.  But  emigration  from  North 
Italy  is  a complex  phenomenon  depending  upon  some  things 
besides  an  agricultural  situation.  From  the  mountains  emigra- 
tion has  been  age-long;  from  Carnia,  in  the  Friuli,  it  has  been 
important  since  the  sixteenth  century.  Grazing  and  agriculture 
do  not  support  many  people  and  other  industries  are  few;  even 
domestic  textile  working  declines  when  machine-made  goods  that 
are  pretty  and  cheap  (though  they  be  not  durable)  can  be  pur- 
chased. Later  begins  the  emigration  from  the  plains.  Lacking  a 
tradition,  not  yet  habitual,  it  commences  modestly,  acquires 
momentum  quickly,  and  proceeds  feverishly  till  accumulated 
pressure  has  subsided.  But  such  a course  is  possible  only  in  mod- 
ern times  when  receptive  and  accessible  nations  exist  elsewhere. 
Consider  the  amazing  rise  and  fluctuations  of  the  overseas  emi- 
gration of  Rovigo,  responsive  to  the  offer  of  gratuitous  passage 


to  Brazil. 

Year 

Emigrants 

Year 

Emigrants 

1886 

7° 

1891 

16,625 

1887 

1,853 

1892 

778 

1888 

13,736 

1893 

1,601 

1889 

1,137 

1894 

4,737 

1890 

92 

1895 

11,337 

In  the  three  years  of  most  copious  emigration  there  were  villages 
from  which  nearly  half  the  inhabitants  went  away;  in  fifteen 
years,  64,500  out  of  an  average  population  of  220,000  departed.2 
This  was  a permanent  emigration,  akin  in  its  causes  and  its 
developments  to  that  from  the  southern  compartments;  the 
tradition  of  permanence  so  started  was  to  continue,  while  tem- 
porary emigration  from  Rovigo  was  to  begin  late  and  have  slight 
importance. 

Farther  to  the  north,  in  Friuli,  has  been  the  greatest  source  of 
Italian  temporary  emigration.  Over  many  years  one  quarter  of 

2 Cavaglieri,  pp.  930  f.,  1032,  1045. 


Serpieri,  pp.  283,  313. 


NORTH  ITALY 


123 


the  total  emigration  into  Europe  came  from  this  region.  It  is  an 
extraordinary  movement  and  can  only  be  explained  if  the  general 
account  of  causes  already  given  be  supplemented;  for  farming 
folk  have  not  been  alone  among  the  emigrants.  There  are  agri- 
culturists who  in  other  countries  engage  in  various  sorts  of  general 
labor  and  in  small  trade.  There  are  also,  however,  masons,  stone- 
cutters, blacksmiths,  furnace  workers,  carpenters,  and  the  like, 
who  have  never  been  in  agriculture.  Of  their  sort  even  a farming 
community  requires  a certain  number,  and  since  they  cannot  rise 
much  above  the  poverty  of  the  rest,  they  too  may  be  led  to  emi- 
grate. But  the  mystifying  fact  is  that  in  the  temporary  emigra- 
tion from  the  Friuli  these  more  or  less  skilled  workmen,  far  from 
being  occasional,  are  a very  great  part  of  the  emigrants  and 
often  indeed  the  elite  of  the  population.  Whence  do  they  come  ? 

It  will  be  time  enough  to  discuss,  in  later  chapters,  the  oppor- 
tunities offered  to  Italian  laborers  in  the  countries  of  Europe. 
Here  suffice  it  to  say  that  the  skilled  workmen  of  Udine  have  been 
able  to  labor  abroad  upon  terms  acceptable  to  their  employers 
and  themselves  and  have  found  it  cheapest  to  spend  the  winter 
in  their  natal  country;  they  have  done  better  than  their  agricul- 
tural brethren.  That  is  why,  counting  upon  future  employment 
in  neighboring  countries,  the  children  of  Friuli  have  been  trained 
to  the  more  skilled  non-agricultural  occupations.  As  if  to  prepare 
themselves  to  resist  the  hard  toil  of  later  years,  boys  usually  begin 
with  work  in  the  furnaces,  in  Hungary  perhaps  or  in  Germany. 
A year  or  two  later,  drawn  perhaps  toward  the  primal  trade  of  all, 
the  mason’s,  they  become  hodcarriers,  next  undertake  the  coarser 
forms  of  masonry  and  finally  the  more  skilled  work  with  cement 
and  stucco.  The  winter  season  may  be  devoted  to  the  study  of  a 
foreign  language  or  attendance  at  a school  where  the  finer  tech- 
nique of  the  mason’s  art  is  taught.1  In  time  many  will  become 
contractors,  supplying  troops  of  other  masons  and  risking  their 
own  capital.  By  a similar  procedure  the  other  sorts  of  skilled 
workmen  may  be  developed.2 

1 Such  schools  have  various  origins.  Notable  are  those  maintained  by  labor 
organizations  and  by  the  philanthropic  Societd  U manitaria  (see  ch.  XXIII  below). 

2 Cosattini,  pp.  46  f. 


124 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


What  is  remarkable  in  this  story  is  hardly  that  boys  are  trained 
with  reference  to  work  in  other  lands,  but  rather  that  as  a result 
of  such  training  a population  should  grow  up  which  absolutely 
depended  for  its  livelihood  upon  employment  abroad.  Here  are 
scores  of  thousands  of  workmen  retaining  a winter  habitat  in 
Venetia  who  would  probably  not  survive  an  enforced  prolonged 
stay  at  home.  Indeed,  it  is  likely  that  they  would  never  have 
been  born,  except  for  the  command  of  sustenance  which  this  tem- 
porary emigration  has  brought  into  the  country.  There  is  here 
no  longer  question  merely  of  an  outlet  for  an  otherwise  starving 
agricultural  population.  That  exists,  but  alongside  of  it  is  the 
recurring  departure  of  persons  who  have  never  expected  to  be 
other  than  emigrants.  And  with  the  passing  years  of  the  last 
quarter  century,  much  even  of  the  agricultural  population  has 
become  committed  to  a seasonal  emigration,  so  lessening  the 
strain  upon  the  remaining  inhabitants.  There  is  little  doubt,  for 
instance,  that  the  annual  departure  of  Bellunese  women  to  the 
Trentino  is  to  be  so  explained.  In  its  latest  phase,  the  entire 
temporary  emigration  from  such  a region  as  Venetia  becomes  less 
a movement  to  assuage  hunger  than  a movement  to  provide 
pocket  money  and  a living  through  the  winter.1 

There  is  over  a great  part  of  North  Italy  an  element  absent  in 
much  of  the  South.  By  the  side  of  a primitive  agriculture,  or  one 
carried  on  in  unresponsive  natural  conditions,  there  is  the  highly 
elaborated  agriculture  in  which  the  workman  plays  an  absolutely 
essential  part  and  yet  is  paid  scantily.  Emphasis  is  laid  in  all 
accounts  upon  the  competition  of  men  against  men  to  secure 
employment  or  leases.  Sheer  numbers  press  upon  each  other. 
Families  averaging  eight,  ten,  twelve  members,  have  been  com- 
mon.2 Where,  as  in  the  hill  region  of  Lombardy,  circumstances 
have  been  kind,  there  the  growing  children  may  secure  an  eco- 

1 This  explanation  accords  with  the  answers  given  by  emigrants  to  the  question, 
propounded  in  1881  by  the  Bureau  of  Statistics,  whether  they  were  leaving  because 
of  misery  at  home  or  to  improve  their  lot  elsewhere.  To  a much  greater  extent 
than  in  the  South  the  second  answer  was  affirmed.  On  the  situation  in  Udine,  see 
Cosattini,  p.  69;  on  Piedmont,  Inch.  Agr.,  viii‘,  pp.  766  f.  (cf.  Mosso,  p.  53,  on 
Biella). 

2 Cf.  Serpieri,  pp.  310  f. 


NORTH  ITALY 


125 


nomic  foothold;  there  every  village  has  its  spinning  mills  able  to 
employ  abundant  labor.  And  it  happens  that  the  chief  industrial 
section  of  Italy  is  in  a belt  of  territory  about  Milan.  Where,  how- 
ever, an  alternative  and  expanding  industry  does  not  exist,  there, 
if  the  population  grows,  an  outlet  is  possible  only  through  emi- 
gration. From  Sondrio  many  depart,  and  from  Cuneo  and 
Torino;  for  these  provinces,  or  at  least  their  higher  parts,  offer 
only  agriculture  and  dairying  as  livelihoods.  Of  transoceanic 
emigration  from  Piedmont  and  Lombardy  there  is  today  compara- 
tively little,  though  once  a dense  current  moved  to  South  America; 
of  temporary  emigration  into  Europe  there  is  much.  And  again, 
as  in  Venetia,  the  phenomenon  appears  of  a specialization  of  men 
by  trades  for  emigration,  while  the  women  carry  on  the  farm  work 
at  home.1 

For  Lombardy,  it  was  noted  nearly  forty  years  ago: 

In  some  communes,  especially  of  Como  and  Bergamo,  certain  trades  are 
traditional,  such,  for  example,  as  that  of  the  mason,  or  stonecutter,  or 
porter,  or  brazier,  or  potter;  and  whoever  takes  up  one  of  these  with  the 
intention  of  emigrating  knows  for  a certainty  that  he  will  have  the  support 
of  the  masters  of  his  place  who  have  preceded  him,  have  already  estab- 
lished themselves  abroad,  have  conquered  in  the  struggle  for  existence  and 
will  gladly  enrol  him  in  their  troop  or  at  least  help  him  and  steer  him  in  his 
first  ventures. 2 

Such,  then,  in  its  causes  and  its  changing  forms  has  been  the 
emigration  from  North  Italy.  That  its  course  has  been  different 
from  that  of  South  Italy  is  due  first  of  all  to  the  fact  that  the  con- 
ditions of  living  to  be  eluded  were  less  wretched  than  those  of  the 
South,  and  secondly  to  the  accessibility  of  European  labor  mar- 
kets and  the  quickened  growth  of  industrial  activity.  The  im- 
provement, slight  but  genuine,  which,  according  to  the  writers  of 
the  Inchiesta  Agraria,  had  generally  taken  place  in  agricultural 
conditions  over  the  years  1860-80,  is  chiefly  to  be  explained  by  the 
industrial  expansion  of  that  period;  and  the  expansion  has  since 

1 On  Piedmont  see  Inch.  Agr.,  viii‘,  p.  608.  For  the  people  of  Roccabruna, 
Sig.  Baldioli-Chiorando  has  pointedly  written  (op.  cit.,  p.  847),  “the  chief  source  of 
wealth  is  France,”  whither  a third  of  the  population  go  annually  for  a six  months’ 
stay.  Of  the  emigrants  from  the  province  of  Cuneo  older  than  twenty  years,  three- 
fifths  have  been  between  twenty  and  thirty  years  of  age  (ibid.,  p.  851). 

2 Inch.  Agr.,  vi‘,  pp.  44  f. 


126 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


gone  further.  Without  these  labor  markets  and  industrial  op- 
portunities, it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  in  North  Italy,  as  in 
South,  harder  terms  of  living  would  have  come  to  be  and  the  emi- 
gration would  have  developed  a permanent  rather  than  a tem- 
porary form.  As  it  is,  the  dimensions  of  the  whole  phenomenon 
have  been  the  greater  because  of  the  maintenance  of  the  custom 
of  large  families  — but  that  is  a matter  to  which  we  shall  recur 
much  later  in  this  inquiry. 


BOOK  III 

IN  FOREIGN  LANDS 


CHAPTER  VIII 


FRANCE 

Down  from  the  mountains  into  the  plains  the  current  of  men  has 
proceeded  from  time  immemorial.  From  Alps  into  lowland  has 
lain  the  way  of  the  Piedmontese  and  their  neighbors.  Generally 
the  lowland  has  been  Italy,  but  more  and  more,  for  a long  time 
past,  it  has  been  France. 

One  current  has  followed  the  Mediterranean  shore,  keeping 
mainly  to  the  south  of  the  mountain  slopes.  Another  has  cut 
through  the  Savoyard  Alps,  by  Mont  Cenis,  and  has  settled  in  the 
east  of  France;  or,  passing  through  Lyons,  has  followed  the 
Saone  and  Seine  valleys  to  Paris.  The  transalpine  current  has 
also  scattered  Italians  along  the  Loire,  from  Nevers  to  Angers, 
and  on  the  southern  coasts  of  Brittany.  Though  the  journey  to 
France  has  usually  been  undertaken  for  a season  only,  the  sojourn 
there  has  often  been  prolonged.  In  the  nineteenth  century  the 
temporary  immigration  of  agricultural  laborers  — men,  women, 
and  children  - — and  the  establishment  of  one  great  city  colony, 
Marseilles,  were  the  characteristic  developments.  The  twentieth 
has  beheld  an  extraordinary  gathering  in  the  mining  centers  of 
French  Lorraine  and  a striking  expansion  of  the  industrial  forms 
of  immigration. 

The  Italians  have  come  to  be  the  most  numerous  foreigners  in 
France.  In  four  of  the  six  departments  of  the  country  in  which 
aliens  most  abound,  they  have  been  the  chief  foreign  element.1 
In  1851  (when  census  figures  began),  they  numbered  63,307,  or 
about  one-sixth  of  all  the  foreigners;  in  1886,  they  were  264,568, 
or  about  one-fourth;  in  1911,  414,234,  or  more  than  a fourth  — 
enough  to  make  a city  as  large  as  Genoa  and  Venice  together. 

1 Resultats  statistiques  du  recensement  general  de  la  population  effectue  le  5 mars, 
1911,  i,  Pt.  i,  p.  41.  In  what  follows  I have  drawn  freely  upon  this  work  and  also, 
for  data  involving  early  censuses,  upon  an  official  compilation,  Denombremenl  des 
etrangers  en  France,  Paris,  1893. 


129 


130 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


Women  have  been  numerous  among  them  but  not  many  have 
gone  far  into  France. 

With  her  stationary  population  and  her  finely  organized  indus- 
tries, France,  in  the  years  before  the  war,  had  become  an  out- 
standing country  of  immigration.  Belgians  have  long  poured 
over  the  northern  border  and  for  decades  led  all  migrants  into 
France.  Luxemburgers,  Germans,  Swiss,  Spaniards  in  large 
numbers  have  penetrated  for  varying  distances  into  the  interior. 
Yet  in  nearly  every  field  of  labor,  the  Italians,  in  recent  years, 
have  held  a place  second  to  no  other  foreign  nationality.  In 
agriculture  and  forestry,  occupying  many  immigrants,  they  have 
been  about  40  per  cent;  Belgians  and  Spaniards  together,  the 
next  largest  groups,  not  much  exceeding  them.  In  manufacturing, 
their  chief  sphere,  they  have  again  been  40  per  cent.  In  trans- 
portation they  have  been  nearly  two-thirds  of  all  foreigners;  in 
trade  more  than  one-third;  in  domestic  service,  a little  less  than 
one-third,  Germans  and  Belgians  following  closely.1 

A nearer  view  is  perhaps  even  more  impressive.  In  forestry, 
besides  some  600  persons  in  charge  of  operations,  the  census  of 
1906  discovered  1700  hired  workpeople,  actually  6 per  cent  of  all 
forestry  workmen  in  the  country.  Since  the  work  places  in  this 
industry  are  scattered,  the  importance  of  the  Italians  could  hardly 
be  otherwise  inferred  than  through  the  census.  Some  4000  Italian 
quarrymen  enumerated  in  the  same  year  were  7 per  cent  of  such 
workmen  in  France.  In  the  mines  were  6400.  Nearly  8000  em- 
ployed in  the  chemical  factories  were  8 per  cent  of  the  country’s 
workers.  Of  6000  in  the  textile  industries  three-quarters  were 
women  and  girls;  nearly  all  were  in  the  silk  mills,  for  the  cotton 
mills  were  filled  with  Belgians.  Seventy-seven  hundred  worked 
upon  the  common  metals.  In  ordinary  digging  and  construction 
were  nearly  24,000,  more  than  7 per  cent  of  the  country’s  supply. 
So  it  goes,  for  these  are  samples  only.  Italians  engaged  on  the 

1 Residtats  statistiques  du  recensemenl  general  de  la  population  en  1906,  i,  Pt.  iii, 
p.  29.  In  default  of  later  detailed  occupational  statistics  I have  found  it  necessary 
to  rely  upon  this  census.  For  1911,  I have  seen  only  the  collective  figures,  which 
show  some  31,000  Italians  in  agriculture  and  forestry-,  124,000  in  manufacturing, 
29,000  in  transportation,  28,000  in  trade,  4000  in  liberal  professions,  etc.,  19,000 
in  domestic  service. 


FRANCE 


131 

public  works  (it  is  worth  noting),  before  a limiting  decree  of  1899, 
were  very  numerous,  averaging  nearly  half  of  all  employed  in  the 
southern  departments.1 

For  fifty  years  past,  a diminution  of  all  kinds  of  agricultural 
workers  has  taken  place  in  France.  The  rural  exodus,  whatever 
its  compensations,  has  caused  deep  concern  to  the  nation;  and  a 
rural  immigration  from  neighboring  countries  has  brought  only 
partial  alleviation.  Among  the  arriving  helpers,  the  Italians  have 
been  second  to  no  other,  and  probably  have  been,  in  number, 
three-quarters  of  all. 

Only  imperfectly  has  the  census  revealed  their  importance.  Of 
small  proprietors  and  tenants  — heads  of  establishments  — the 
3800  men  and  more  than  4000  women  counted  in  March,  1906, 
were  probably  as  many  as  could  be  found  at  any  other  season. 
Of  8000  isolated  workers  ( travailleurs  isoles),  men  and  women,  the 
same  comment  holds.  But  the  10,000  hired  workpeople,  of  whom 
three-quarters  were  men,  were  certainly  only  a fraction  of  those 
employed  later  in  the  year.  Belgians  were  found  to  be  equally 
numerous  with  the  Italians,  and  Spaniards  about  half  as  nu- 
merous, but  of  these  peoples  also  a later  reckoning  would  have 
shown  more.  Still  other  figures  showed  Italians  occupied  in 
grazing  and  makers  of  butter  and  cheese  (present  chiefly  in  the 
coastal  mountains)  to  be  important  groups. 

To  the  Alpes-Mari times  some  15,000  a year  have  come,  from 
Liguria  and  Piedmont,  Umbria  and  Tuscany.  Five  or  six  thou- 
sand, mainly  women  and  children,  have  sufficed  for  the  winter’s 
work  entailed  by  a production  of  100,000  hectoliters  of  olives. 
Some  have  later  been  used  for  gathering,  successively,  violets, 
roses,  jasmines,  and  other  flowers,  destined  to  adorn  the  toilettes 
of  the  women  of  Paris  and  Berlin.  Working  in  gangs  in  the 
autumn  and  winter,  others  have  prepared  the  soil  for  the  flowers, 

1 Figures  are  given  by  L.  Rossi,  “ L’immigrazione  italiana  nel  distretto  consolare 
di  Marsiglia,”  Emig.  e Col.,  1903,  i1,  p.  277.  Cf.  E.  Levasseur,  Questions  ouvrieres 
et  industr idles  en  France  sous  la  troisieme  republique  (Paris,  1907),  p.  461.  On 
Italian  labor  on  railways  (including  certain  strategic  lines),  canals,  bridges,  streets, 
see,  besides  L.  Rossi  (p.  275),  the  reports  of  C.  Magenta  and  E.  Centurione  in  Emig. 
e Col.,  1893,  pp.  234-238. 


132 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


and  have  returned  home  in  the  spring.  More  and  more  the  call 
for  the  flower-gardeners  has  gone  forth,  and  they  have  been 
deemed  an  acceptable  labor  force,  “ as  far  as  delicacy  and  skill 
are  not  demanded.”  1 

In  Var,  especially  in  the  harvest  season,  the  Italians  have  be- 
come more  and  more  numerous,  the  men  being  employed  in  dig- 
ging and  the  vintage,  the  women  in  flower-gardening  and  in 
gathering  vegetables.  After  some  years  of  effort  they  have  often 
bought  or  rented  bits  of  land,  cultivating  upon  their  own  account 
while  at  the  same  time  hiring  out  to  others.2  For  the  other  coarser 
tasks,  they  have  been  regarded  as  indispensable.  “ When  super- 
vised, the  men  and  especially  the  women,  do  a greater  amount  of 
work  than  the  French.  But  since  they  are  less  intelligent,  they 
cannot  be  entrusted  with  tasks  demanding  initiative.”  3 

In  that  other  littoral  department  of  the  old  Provence,  Bouches- 
du-Rhone,  the  Italians  have  been  the  successors  of  the  mountain 
folk  who  once  came  for  the  harvest  from  Aude  and  Herault. 
Many  have  become  permanent  residents.  Digging,  and  draining 
marshes  ■ — standing  in  the  water  and  toiling  at  all  hours  — help- 
ing in  the  harvests,  they  have  made  themselves  almost  essential 
for  much  of  this  work.  For  the  vintage  they  have  come  by  train- 
loads. “ To  them,”  says  a French  witness,  “ we  owe  the  trans- 
formation of  the  Camargue  into  a wine  country  — a veritable 
agricultural  tour  de  force.”  In  the  hilly  parts,  they  have  gathered 
olives,  and  in  the  oil  factories  they  have  been  welcomed  as  a con- 
venient substitute  for  French  labor.4 

1 E.  Blanchard,  La  main-d’ceuvre  etrangcre  dans  V agriculture  franqaise  (Paris, 
1913),  pp.  181  f.  The  general  deductions  of  Blanchard’s  book  rest  on  a govern- 
ment study  of  wages  (1912)  and  on  evidence  gathered  personally.  Cf.  M.  Simo- 
netti,  “Immigrazione  e colonie  italiane  nel  dipartmento  delle  Alpe  Marittime,” 
Emig.  e Col.,  1903,  i',  pp.  320-325;  also  A.  Souchon,  La  crisc  de  la  main-d’ceuvre 
agricole  en  France  (Paris,  1914),  p.  49- 

2 Ministere  de  l’Agriculture.  La  petite  propriety  rurale  en  France.  Enquetes 
monographiques  ( 1Q08-IQ09 ),  (Paris,  1909),  p.  259. 

3 Blanchard,  p.  183.  Cf.  P.  A.  Burdese,  “ II  dipartimento  del  Varo  e la  colonia 
italiana,”  Emig.  e Col.,  1903,  i',  pp.  308-314. 

4 C.  F.  Caillard,  Les  migrations  temporaires  dans  les  campagnes  franqaises  (Paris, 
1912),  pp.  66  f.  Cf.  Blanchard,  pp.  184-1S6,  and  M.  Lair,  “ Les  ouvriers  etrangers 
dans  I’agriculture  franjaise,”  Revue  Economique  Internationale,  March,  1907,  esp. 
P-  555- 


FRANCE 


133 


To  Aude  and  Herault,  also  to  Gard,  many  thousands  have 
come.  Though  the  Spaniards  have  been  the  chief  vintagers,  the 
Italians,  by  their  arduous  labor  in  grading,  drainage,  and  irriga- 
tion, have  rendered  great  services  to  the  viticulture  of  Languedoc. 
They  have  partly  taken  the  place  of  workers  who  disappeared 
during  the  phylloxera  crisis  a quarter  century  ago.  Some  spend  a 
part  of  their  time  in  fishing  upon  their  own  account  off  the  coast 
and  living  in  gypsy  encampments,  while  awaiting  new  work  in  the 
fields.1 

While  dealing  with  the  South  of  France,  it  cannot  be  amiss  to 
consider  the  strange  situation  of  Corsica.  To  this  department, 
subject  to  an  unremitting  emigration  of  its  own  sons,  many 
thousands  of  Italians  have  come  annually  for  a six  months’  stay, 
spreading  in  gangs  over  the  island.  Perhaps  as  many  as  25,000 
have  taken  up  permanent  residence.  Since  the  native  population 
has  no  love  for  toiling  in  the  fields  “ the  sad  truth  emerges  that 
the  cultivation  of  Corsica  is  almost  entirely  the  work  of  foreigners. 
If  the  help  of  the  Lucchese  and  Tuscans  were  to  fail,  the  position 
of  this  department  would  become  truly  critical.”2 

In  the  B asses- Alpes  and  Vaucluse  numerous  Italians  have 
found  employment.  The  Piedmontese  long  migrated  into  the 
East  of  France,  even  as  far  as  the  Nievre,  to  carry  on  the  exacting 
forestry  operations  of  the  Cote-d’Or,  as  well  as  the  general  work  of 
agriculture;  but  they  have  now  ceased  to  come,  preferring  the 
South.  In  the  Savoies,  the  heavy  Italian  immigration  of  former 
years  has  been  declining.3 

Most  of  these  immigrants  have  worked  for  wages.  What  of  the 
thousands  of  agricultural  proprietors  counted  by  the  census  ? 
Dwelling  chiefly  in  the  Alpes-Mari times  and  the  Bouches-du- 
Rhone,  they  were  workers  who  had  saved  enough  to  buy  and  cul- 
tivate here  and  there  a strip  of  land  set  free  by  the  morcellement  of 
a moderately  sized  estate,  or  too  small  for  the  needs  of  a French 

1 Caillard,  pp.  64  f.  See  also  M.  Camicia,  “Gli  italiani  nel  dipartimento  dell’ 
Herault,”  Emig.  e Col.,  1903,  i‘,  pp.  315-319;  Souchon,  loc.  cil.;  Lair,  loc.  cit. 

2 Caillard,  pp.  68-70.  Cf.  Blanchard,  p.  186,  and  E.  Colucci,  “ Notizie  sulla 
popolazione  italiana  in  Corsica,”  Emig.  e Col.,  1903,  i*,  pp.  326-329;  idem,  report 
on  Bastia  district,  Emig.  e Col.,  1893,  pp.  212-216. 

3 Caillard,  pp.  63,  83-107;  Blanchard,  p.  186. 


134 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


family,  or  “abandoned,”  as  our  New  England  farms  are  aban- 
doned. It  is  claimed  however  that  they  have  worked  these  lands 
less  capably  than  the  French.1 

Yet  in  the  last  analysis,  it  is  not  as  proprietors  but  as  hired  folk 
that  the  Italians  have  been  mainly  profitable  to  France.  In  the 
oil  and  wine  departments,  and  where  flowers  and  vegetables  are 
raised,  they  have  been  described  by  French  students  as  “ abso- 
lutely indispensable  ” and  as  “ contributing  greatly  to  the  agri- 
cultural prosperity  of  southern  France.”  Without  them  much 
irrigation  would  not  have  been  undertaken.  Where  strength  is 
needed  rather  than  deftness,  where  a temporary  increase  of  the 
labor  force  is  asked,  where  an  expansion  of  agriculture  is  desired 
in  a population  that,  apart  from  the  Italians,  tends  to  decline, 
there  they  have  had  a role.  The  employer  has  found  them  more 
manageable  than  the  French  workmen  and  has  known  that  the 
latter,  even  when  available,  would  cost  him  more.2 

Fet  us  take  a glimpse  at  some  of  the  principal  settlements  of  the 
Italians  in  France. 

At  Paris,  in  1911,  there  were  nearly  34,000  of  these  people, 
living  in  half  a dozen  quarters,  and  making  the  largest  and  the 
most  picturesque  of  all  the  foreign  colonies  in  the  metropolis.3 
In  no  other  considerable  Italian  colony  of  the  world  has  the 
artistic  note  been  so  dominant.  Besides  the  student  groups,  there 
have  been  the  literary  folk,  the  musicians,  including  those  of  the 
street;  the  plaster  workers  who  utilize  the  labor  of  their  own  or 
others’  children  in  making  statuettes  and  vending  them  in  the 
streets;  the  models  — not  only  boys  and  girls,  but  their  parents 
often  — the  father  posing  as  the  Christ  or  an  apostle  and  in  the 
dead  season  acting  for  the  cinematograph,  the  mother  posing  as 

1 Blanchard,  pp.  195  f.;  Min.  de  l’Agr.,  La  petite  propriety  rurale,  pp.  99,  259. 
In  the  reports  contained  in  Emig.  e Col.,  1903,  i‘,  there  is  testimony  of  proprietor- 
ship in  sundry  provinces. 

2 For  the  quotations,  see  Blanchard,  p.  1S0  (cf.  Caillard,  p.  149).  See  also  Lair, 
pp.  552-563. 

3 Thousands  more  were  in  outlying  parts.  Seventy  years  ago,  Correnti  claimed, 
doubtless  with  exaggeration,  that  the  Italians  in  Paris  were  20,000,  standing  well 
in  music,  letters,  the  theater,  banking,  and  the  jeweller’s  trade.  (Correnti,  Annuario 
stalislico  italiano,  Anno  I,  1857-58,  pp.  456  f.) 


FRANCE 


135 


peasant  or  Madonna;  the  ballet  dancers;  the  men  dressmakers; 
and  those  artists  of  the  kitchen  who  compose  menus  and  devise 
rare  dishes.1 

The  unskilled  laborers  of  the  glass  works  have  generally  been 
Italian,  preferred  to  the  French  because  their  children  work  too; 
and  in  the  earthenware  manufacture,  the  fashioners  of  stove  tiles 
have,  in  recent  years,  nearly  all  been  Italian,  because  a generation 
ago  the  French  workmen  sought  to  check  competition  by  limiting 
apprenticeship,  and  the  Italians  invited  their  friends  from  Castella 
Monte  to  bring  their  skill  to  Paris.  Finally,  there  have  been 
thousands  of  building  workmen,  a persistently  increasing  group, 
evidence  that  the  newer  emigration  has  at  last  been  superposed 
upon  the  old.  Though  the  Italians  have  often  brought  their 

1 Mile.  Schirmacher,  La  specialisation  du  travail  par  nationalites  a Paris  (Paris, 
1908),  pp.  140-1.18.  In  an  eloquent,  if  curious,  work,  the  fruit  of  wide  searching  in 
books  and  in  life,  Larmes  et  sourires  de  l' emigration  italienne  (Paris,  1909),  pp.  21- 
186,  R.  Paolucci  de’  Calboli  treats  of  certain  nomad  types  that  have  come  to  France, 
as  a rule  to  Paris,  over  a long  stretch  of  time.  Italian  models,  girls  and  men,  first 
came  in  the  seventeenth  century,  when  indeed  the  occupation  as  such  first  became 
recognized;  and  they  soon  became  numerous  as  well  as  prized.  In  the  period  1850- 
73,  while  the  Roman  type  declined,  padroni  brought  girls  from  the  South  of  Italy. 
A general  decrease  ensued,  a conservative  calculation  at  the  time  of  de’  Calboli’s 
writing  putting  their  numbers  at  800-850. 

Long  before  bootblacks  existed  in  Italy,  before  indeed  the  language  had  a word 
for  them,  Savoyard  and  Piedmontese  boy  chimney-sweeps  in  France,  especially 
Paris,  began  to  use  the  soot  of  the  chimneys  to  prepare  a blacking.  In  the  eight- 
eenth century  many  earned  their  living  by  polishing  boots.  In  the  early  nineteenth, 
they  numbered  thousands  in  Paris.  After  the  middle  of  the  century  they  gradually 
ceased  to  come.  The  300-400  present  in  France  in  the  early  twentieth  century 
were  all  in  the  South,  especially  at  Marseilles. 

From  Lucca,  later  from  Pisa,  Massa  Carrara,  and  Florence,  came  immigrants, 
mainly  boys,  to  work  as  makers  of  statuettes.  Their  increase  became  rapid  after 
1830. 

To  France,  much  more  than  to  any  other  country,  came  Piedmontese  glaziers, 
nomadic  only  with  the  advent  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Several  hundreds  a year 
came  to  Paris.  From  September  till  April  they  wandered  about  in  a rather  profit- 
able search  for  broken  windows  and  a chance  to  repair  them.  In  1888  the  hostility 
of  French  workers  became  pronounced  and  thereafter  the  occupation  was  doomed. 

Street  musicians,  players  of  various  instruments,  including  after  a time  many 
who  carried  the  Barbary  organ,  came  in  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries. 
In  1867,  1544  were  claimed  to  be  in  Paris.  After  1874  a decline  set  in,  becoming 
pronounced  after  the  assassination  of  President  Carnot.  In  recent  years  troupes 
singing  Neapolitan  songs  have  come. 


136  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

families  to  Paris,  they  have  been  less  likely  than  other  immigrants 
to  stay  there  permanently.1 

How  broadly  different  from  this  colony  is  that  of  Marseilles! 
At  least  125,000  Italians  have  been  there  in  recent  years,  a ver- 
itable city  in  themselves,  as  large  as  Messina,  and  a fifth  part  — 
or  more  — of  Marseilles  itself.  Add  those  of  the  outlying  districts 
and  the  total  mounts  to  150,000.  In  this  colony,  the  beginnings 
of  which  date  too  far  back  to  be  traced,  are  found  all  social  classes; 
in  fact,  many  of  the  old  families  of  the  city  claim  a Ligurian 
origin.  In  the  recent  decades  of  rapid  industrial  progress,  the 
Italian  population  has  grown  faster  than  the  French.  Tuscans 
and  Piedmontese  predominate,  but  more  and  more  South  Italians 
have  come.  The  annual  arrivals  have  numbered  about  five  or  six 
thousand,  the  departures  half  as  many.2 

It  is  a rather  compact  settlement  which  the  Italians  have  made 
in  old  Marseilles.  But  semi-rural  occupations  and  suburban 
factories  have  led  also  to  a degree  of  centrifugal  colonization.3 
In  the  quarters  of  Saint-Jean,  the  Mairie,  and  two  or  three  others, 
unchanged  in  their  characteristics  for  centuries,  five  the  fisherfolk 
and  the  South  Italian  element  — sellers  of  fruit,  vegetables,  fish, 
and  small  wares.  Of  some  2400  fishermen  in  Marseilles  a majority 
have  been  claimed  to  be  of  Italian  origin;  their  number  is  aug- 
mented in  the  summer  by  Neapolitans.  Many  Italians  have  been 
employed  as  longshoremen,  in  street  paving  and  maintenance,  and 
in  the  salt  works.  Thousands  have  engaged  in  manufactures: 
in  candle  making,  in  soap  making  (an  old  industry,  now  much 
expanded,  with  factories  both  in  the  city  and  its  suburbs),  in  the 
preparation  of  olive  oil  (nearly  all  of  5000  workpeople  have  been 
held  to  be  Italians),  in  the  operations  of  the  potteries  and  brick 

1 Schirmacher,  pp.  129,  136-139;  L.  Villari,  “ Gli  italiani  in  Francia,  I,”  Vita 
Italiana  all’  Estero,  March,  1913,  pp.  189-198. 

2 See  a study  by  G.  Lelli,  chancellor  of  the  Italian  Chamber  of  Commerce  at 
Marseilles,  submitted  to  the  Milan  Exposition  and  published  as  “Gli  italiani  in 
Marsiglia,”  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1908,  No.  19,  pp.  53-69.  See  also  G.  Pio  di  Savoia,  com- 
munication in  Rivisla  di  Emigrazione,  May,  1910,  pp.  59  f.  On  an  earlier  epoch, 
cf.  E.  Rostand,  Les  questions  d’economie  sociale  dans  une  grande  ville  popidaire 
(Paris,  1889),  pp.  417  fit.  On  various  special  aspects  see  Paolucci  de’  Calboli,  op.  cil. 

3 On  the  Italians’  distribution  over  the  city,  see  A.  A.  Bemardy,  “ L'ltalia  a 
Marsiglia,”  Rivista  Coloniale,  July  25-August  10,  1911,  pp.  225,  227. 


FRANCE 


137 


kilns.  Most  of  the  shoe  workers  have  been  Italians,  some  em- 
ployed in  the  factories,  others  carrying  on  a domestic  industry, 
chiefly  for  their  compatriots.  Much  else  that  is  characteristic, 
however,  like  the  boy  bootblacks  of  the  streets,  I must  pass  by. 
It  may  be  said  in  general  that  the  most  toilsome  tasks  of  this  great 
city,  the  most  unhealthful,  the  least  well-paid,  have  been  almost 
exclusively  in  Italian  hands. 

Lyons  is  the  center  of  a district  comprising  the  departments  of 
the  Rhone,  Loire,  Ain,  and  Isere  where  thousands  of  Italians  have 
for  many  years  earned  a living.  As  long  as  half  a century  ago  the 
colony  was  large.  Today  it  is  not  the  men,  numerous  as  general 
and  building  laborers  and  as  mill  workmen,  but  the  women  and 
children,  who  give  this  region  its  distinction;  in  the  Loire  they 
even  exceed  the  men  in  number.  The  silk  industry  in  its  growth 
in  the  last  twenty-five  years  has  utilized  ever  larger  numbers  of 
Italian  operatives,  and  the  glass  industry,  originally  derived  from 
Italy,  has  employed  three  or  four  thousand  Italian  boys  at  a 
time  — French  parents  have  not  permitted  their  children  to  do 
the  exhausting  work  required.  The  boys  employed  in  the  glass 
works  used  to  travel  to  France  afoot,  but  the  later  way  has  been 
to  come  by  sea  from  Naples  to  Marseilles.1 

The  growth  in  numbers  of  the  Italians  of  Toulon  accounts  in 
large  part  for  their  growth  in  the  department  of  Var.  “ At  Toulon 
a goodly  portion  of  the  names  over  the  shop  windows  are  Italian. 
To  that  nationality  belong  the  servant  classes  of  the  hotels,  all  the 
nurses,  a large  part  of  the  workmen.  A third  of  the  population  of 
La  Seyne  (ten  minutes’  distance  from  Toulon)  is  Italian ; the  7000 
inhabitants  of  La  Londe  are  nearly  all  Italian.”  2 This  was  some 
years  ago.  At  one  time  they  were  numerously  employed  in  the 

1 E.  Perrod,  “ Immigrazione  e colonia  italiana  nel  distretto  consolare  di  Lione,” 
Emig.  e Col.,  1903,  i',  pp.  222-235;  idem,  “I  minorenni  italiani  nelle  industrie 
lionesi,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1902,  No.  9,  pp.  50-57;  V.  Ferliga,  “ L’emigrazione  italiana 
in  Alsazia  Lorena  e Francia,”  Rivista  di  Emigrazione,  October-November,  1909, 
pp.  22-31;  Beatrice  Berio  (Segretariato  Permanente  Femminile  per  la  Tutela  delle 
Donne  e dei  Franciulli  Emigranti),  Relazione  still’  emigrazione  delle  donne  e dei 
fancinlli  italiani  nella  Francia  meridionale  (Rome,  1912),  pp.  7-42;  L.  Villari, 
“ Gli  italiani  in  Francia,  III,”  Vita  Italiana  all’  Estero,  May,  1913,  pp.  364-368; 
Paolucci  de’  Calboli,  Pt.  ii,  ch.  i. 

2 Burdese,  p.  312;  cf.  Ferliga,  p.  35. 


138 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


great  arsenal,  but  from  it,  for  many  years,  all  unnaturalized 
foreigners  have  been  excluded.  Once,  too,  they  were  a third  of 
the  laborers  in  the  naval  works  at  La  Seyne,  but  since  1903  the 
law  has  permitted  only  a fifth  to  be  foreign.  The  fortifications  of 
Toulon  are  largely  the  work  of  Italians.1 

The  Briey  district  — to  describe  it  as  it  was  before  the  German 
invasion  of  1914  — has  been  nearly  everything  that  Marseilles 
has  not  been.  Composed  of  men  workers,  never  women,  of  men 
regarding  themselves  as  only  temporarily  in  France,  it  is  a com- 
munity that  has  grown  with  astonishing  rapidity,  and  wholly  in 
recent  years;  where  labor,  far  from  being  varied,  regular,  and 
relatively  light,  has  been  hard,  coarse,  and  exacting. 

The  Briey  basin  lies  in  the  departments  of  Meurthe-et-Moselle 
and  the  Meuse.  In  what  became  German  Lorraine  in  1870,  great 
’iron  mines  had  long  existed.  But  it  was  not  known  that  the  belt 
of  ore  which  extends  into  Luxemburg  and  Belgium  underlies  also 
the  meadows  of  French  Lorraine,  and  it  was  not  until  the  last 
years  of  the  nineteenth  century  that  the  range  of  the  French  de- 
posits was  guessed.  A decade  followed  in  which  the  mines  were 
opened  with  feverish  haste,  so  that  they  soon  yielded  three- 
fourths  or  more  of  the  total  output  of  French  ore.  What  has  been 
rare  in  France,  the  great  expansion  of  the  population  of  a depart- 
ment, happened  in  Meurthe-et-Moselle.  Cities  sprang  up  as  if  by 
magic.  Tranquil  villages  burst  their  bounds  and  became  bustling 
centers  of  life.  Homecourt,  Joeuf,  Auboue,  Tucquegnieux,  Hus- 
signy,  Pienne,  Longwy,  Jasny,  Mou tiers  leaped  quickly  to  impor- 
tance. But  they  were  not  French  cities:  they  resembled  rather 
the  mining  towns  of  our  own  American  West.  For  the  French 
countryfolk  held  aloof  from  them,  and  the  miners  who  came  from 
the  coal  fields  were  few.  Natives  of  France  were  presently  (it  was 
claimed)  only  a fifth  of  the  workers;  15  per  cent  more  were  of 
various  nationalities,  and  all  the  rest  — nearly  two-thirds  of  all  — 
were  Italians.2  In  the  entire  department  of  Meurthe-et-Moselle, 

} Cf.  Berio,  p.  59. 

2 According  to  Dr.  A.  Vinci,  “ L’emigrazione  italiana  nella  regione  di  Briey,” 
Boll.  Emig.,  1913,  No.  12,  p.  15. 


FRANCE 


139 


there  had  been  in  1901  only  6000  of  these  immigrants.  Early  in 
1910,  an  estimate  put  them  at  30,000.  By  the  middle  of  1913, 
they  were  46,755  in  a foreign  population  of  74,073,  representing 
some  eighteen  nationalities.1  To  these  might  be  added  some 
1500  living  in  the  department  of  the  Meuse,  because  it  belongs  to 
the  same  industrial  area. 

The  Italians  came  to  Briey  by  way  of  Metz,  after  having  been 
enrolled  by  their  employers  while  in  Switzerland  or  Italy;  ulti- 
mately they  came  from  Lombardy,  Piedmont,  Venetia,  Romagna, 
Tuscany,  the  Abruzzi,  and  Sardinia.2  Besides  settling  apart  from 
other  nationalities,  they  were  marked  off  from  each  other  by  dia- 
lect and  origin.  Permanent  residence,  however,  it  was  soon 
clear,  did  not  attract  them.  Officials  of  various  plants  told  the 
Italian  consul  that  their  typical  sojourn  was  of  three  months,  and 
that  often,  after  only  a few  weeks  in  one  place,  they  would  shift  to 
other  employers.  A certain  capriciousness,  a readiness  to  take 
umbrage,  was  complained  of. 

By  no  means  all  of  the  Italians  were  miners.  Four  or  five  thou- 
sand were  railway  workers  for  the  Compagnie  de  l’Est,  or  gen- 
eral building  laborers  employed  sometimes  by  Italian  contractors. 
A great  many  were  occupied  in  the  iron  and  steel  works,  and  it  is 
even  claimed  that  most  of  the  blast  furnace  employees  were 
Italians.  When  all  is  said,  however,  it  is  chiefly  as  miners  or 
miners’  men  that  they  have  counted,  a group  less  likely  than 

1 According  to  the  count  of  the  subprefecture  of  the  Briey  circuit  (cited  by 
Vinci,  p.  3).  See  also  the  volume  by  de  Canisy,  noted  on  page  537,  infra. 

2 In  an  admirable  study  of  the  metal  industry  in  Briey  Professor  Vignes  relates 
how  the  companies  sought  their  men  outside  of  France,  especially  in  Italy.  First 
they  utilized  foreign  agencies  at  Basel  and  Chiasso.  Then  they  recruited  their 
workers  directly.  But  the  latter  practice  came  to  an  end  after  an  amusing  episode: 
the  representative  of  a leading  company  was  returning  through  Germany  with 
some  cars  of  selected  men  in  order  to  benefit  by  the  reduced  tariffs  which  Germany 
accorded  to  immigrant  workers  — and  he  left  his  men  at  the  Metz  station  while 
he,  during  the  prolonged  wait  of  the  train,  went  to  see  the  town.  Upon  his  return 
not  a man  was  left  — all  had  been  persuaded  to  take  jobs  at  the  German  mills! 
Subsequently  the  common  way  was  for  a committee  to  act  in  Milan,  with  the  legal 
consent  of  the  Italian  authorities,  the  French  companies  shouldering  the  transporta- 
tion charge  and  a fee  of  nine  francs  per  man.  (M.  Vignes,  “ Le  bassin  de  Briey,” 
Revue  d’ Economic  Politique,  five  chapters,  191 2-13 ; esp.  ch.  v,  November-December, 
1913,  pp.  683  f.) 


140 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


others  to  go  home  for  the  winter;  and  of  such  underground 
workers  they  were  probably  a majority.1 

That  the  toil  of  her  Italian  visitors  has  contributed  in  note- 
worthy ways  to  the  production  of  France  needs  now  no  argument. 
Even  though  it  is  usually  the  humblest  employments  and  the 
lowest  places  of  authority  that  they  have  held,  doing  the  tasks  of 
obedience  and  not  of  command,2  such  has  been  the  reliance  placed 
upon  them  in  the  economic  system  of  the  country  that  should 
they  fail,  the  necessary  readjustments  would  be  both  difficult  and 
costly.  And  this  the  employing  classes  have  recognized.3 

French  workmen,  on  the  other  hand,  have  not  received  the 
Italians  with  open  arms.  Since  they  have  regarded  themselves  as 
sacrificed  to  their  employers’  appetite  for  gain,  it  is  worth  while  to 
ask  why.  An  episode  in  the  history  of  the  iron  industry  illus- 
trates their  reasoning.  The  workers  in  Lorraine  had  been  unor- 
ganized, and  all  attempts  at  organization  had  come  to  naught. 
At  Thil  a strike  was  called,  but  when  it  ended,  twenty-nine  days 
later,  a third  of  the  strikers,  mainly  Italians,  had  gone  home,  or 

1 Vignes,  pp.  686  f.,  696.  In  Boll.  Emig.  are  many  references  to  the  colony.  See 
especially  Vinci,  pp.  3-31;  the  author  (whose  report  is  dated  February,  1913)  was 
a consular  agent  in  Briey  as  well  as  an  attache,  of  the  Emigration  Service.  See  also 
Ferliga  (whose  report  was  made  to  the  Segretariato  Toscano  per  l’Emigrazione),  op. 
cit.;  “ L’immigrazione  italiana  nei  circondari  di  Briey  e di  Nancy,”  Emig.  e Col., 
1903,  i',  pp.  218-221  (based  on  information  supplied  by  an  official,  Bidou,  of  the 
Longwy  works);  G.  Reynaud,  “La  colonie  italienne  d’Homecourt,”  Musie  Sociale, 
June,  1910;  A.  Merrheim,  “ L’organisation  patronale  en  France.  I.  La  m6tal- 
lurgie,”  Le  Mouvement  Socialiste,  July  15,  1908,  pp.  5-25;  L.  and  M.  Bonneff, 
La  vie  iragique  des  travailleurs , enquStes  sar  la  condition  economique  el  morale  des 
ouvriers  et  ouvrieres  d’industrie  (Paris,  1914),  pp.  93-149;  L.  Villari,  “ Gli  italiani 
in  Francia,  II,”  Vila  Italiana  all’  Estero,  April,  1913,  pp.  295-302.  Cf.  the  reports 
of  C.  Magenta  on  Cette,  and  of  E.  Centurione  on  Nice  in  Emig.  e Col.,  1893,  pp. 
234-238. 

2 The  census  of  1906  classified  as  follows  the  Italians  earning  a living:  25,081 
heads  of  establishments  (especially  in  agriculture  and  trade);  9021  salaried  employees 
(especially  in  trade;  few  in  manufactures);  61,176  independent  workpeople  (manu- 
factures, trade,  agriculture);  5100  unemployed  (especially  in  manufactures);  and 
I35>543  hired  workpeople  (numerous  in  all  branches).  See  vol.  i1",  pp.  58  f. 

3 They  have  sometimes  asked  for  more  immigration.  See  H.  F.,  “ La  main- 
d’ceuvre  etrangere,”  Bulletin  Trimestrielle  de  1’ Association  Internationale  pour  la 
Lutte  contre  le  Chomage,  July-September,  1912,  p.  533. 


FRANCE 


141 

to  Luxemburg  or  Germany.  At  Hussigny,  350  struck;  but  two- 
thirds  of  them  were  promptly  expelled  from  France  by  the  au- 
thorities and  their  places  taken  by  newly  imported  workmen. 
From  Italy  a skilled  organizer  was  sent  to  help,  but  his  efforts  to 
unite  the  workers  failed  in  turn.  Mobile  foreigners,  the  French 
workmen  inferred,  particularly  if  of  different  races,  cannot  well 
be  organized.  Vignes,  whose  account  is  of  the  industry  rather 
than  of  the  men,  and  who  writes  guardedly,  does  not  hesitate  to 
accuse  the  mine  owners  of  keeping  their  workers  circulating,  and 
expressly  of  utilizing  the  temporary  home-goings  of  the  Italians 
to  accomplish  a change  of  residence.  Hence  to  trade-union 
interests  the  Briey  district  has  been  a byword.1 

As  far  back  as  the  early  eighties,  the  labor  hostility  to  the  Ital- 
ians became  pronounced;  at  Marseilles,  under  the  stress  of  the 
events  in  Tunis,  bloody  riots  took  place.  In  1893,  at  the  salt  works 
of  Aigues-Mortes,  the  French  miners  savagely  attacked  their  Ital- 
ian competitors,  killing  fifty  and  wounding  a hundred  and  fifty. 
All  Italy  was  kindled  and  there  were  serious  anti-French  demon- 
strations.2 At  other  times,  in  agriculture  as  in  industry,  both 
before  and  after  the  assassination  of  President  Carnot,  conflicts 
have  been  many,  and  resentment  has  been  felt  even  when  clashes 
have  not  occurred.3 

What  is  it,  more  expressly,  that  the  French  have  feared  in  the 
Italians  ? “ Despite  their  native  excitability,”  wrote  M.  Lair  in 
their  praise,  “ they  are  infinitely  more  tractable  than  the  southern 

1 Vignes,  pp.  695-698;  A.  Merrheim,  “ Le  mouvement  ouvrier  dans  le  bassin 
de  Longwy,”  Le  Mouvement  Socialiste,  December  1 and  15,  1905,  pp.  425-482. 

2 The  estimate  of  casualties  is  that  contained  in  the  volume  upon  Italy  (1893) 
of  the  report  of  the  British  Royal  Commission  on  Labor.  Curiously,  the  accounts 
are  sharply  divergent;  not  improbably  a lower  figure  would  be  correct. 

In  Italy  there  were  threats  to  burn  the  embassy,  pro-German  demonstrations, 
and  street  troubles  that  had  to  be  put  down  with  the  bayonet. 

3 Tornielli,  pp.  70-72,  85-90;  Great  Britain,  Royal  Commission  on  Labour,  viii 
(Italy),  (London,  ^93),  pp.  8r  f.;  P.  Gitta,  “ I lavoratori  italiani  in  Francia,” 
Riforma  Sociale,  July,  1894,  pp.  995-1003;  Auge-Laribe,  “ Les  ouvriers  de  la 
viticulture  languedocienne  et  leurs  syndicats,”  Musee  Sociale,  November,  1903, 
pp.  266-328;  Rostand,  pp.  417-442;  C.  Durando,  report  on  Marseilles  in  Emig. 
e Col.,  1893,  p.  228;  Magenta,  p.  235;  Lair,  pp.  554-557;  Blanchard,  p.  185; 
Caillard,  pp.  62,  r35  f.;  Souchon,  p.  49;  H.  F.,  “La  main-d’oeuvre,”  etc.,  p.  534. 
See  also  a note  in  Bollettino  del  Lavoro  (serie  quindicinale),  August  1,  1914,  pp.  151  f. 


142 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


French,”  and  low  wages  content  them.1  The  Italian  masons  in 
Paris  have  been  “ attracted  by  those  employers  who  look  for  a 
less  skilful  but  more  docile  labor  force.”  2 The  steel  workers  are 
“ exploitable  and  manageable.”3  Messrs.  Gibe  and  Lambert, 
writing  after  the  Aigues-Mortes  episode,  declared,  “ Because  of 
the  strength  of  their  emigration  movement,  their  endurance  in 
hard  labor,  their  docile  obedience  to  the  orders  of  boss  or  em- 
ployer, their  sobriety  and  the  native  misery  which  allows  them  to 
accept  low  wages,  the  Italians  are  the  Chinese  of  Europe.”  To 
the  workers  of  France  especially,  “ little  disposed  to  toil  so  hard 
and  for  so  little,”  they  bring  “ a formidable  competition,  which  is 
not  supported  without  bitterness.”  4 

The  Italians’  fault,  according  to  the  charge,  is  that  they  will 
accept  lower  wages  than  the  French  or  be  content  with  a rate 
which  the  French  would  raise.  Of  certain  kinds  of  labor,  how- 
ever, in  some  places,  they  have  had  almost  a monopoly.  In  such 
a case  their  competition  is  not  obvious:  they  are  in  jobs  that  the 
French  “ refuse.”  5 6 Yet  even  then  the  sense  of  rivalry  persists. 
Actual  acceptance  of  a lower  wage  for  like  work  is  not  held  to  be 
necessary  for  evidence  of  effective  competition,  and  readiness  to 
join  in  a strike  of  French  workmen  would  not  undo  the  conse- 
quences of  their  demand  for  work.  A general  result  of  the  situa- 
tion is  that  the  Italians  have  very  rarely,  of  their  own  desire, 
become  members  of  French  trade  unions,  and  that  the  French, 
for  their  part,  have  not  invited  them. 

That  they  are  picturesque,  sunny,  and  fond  of  song  is  held  to  be 
nothing  or  little.  They  are  also  dirty,  ignorant,  disorderly,  often 
criminal;  they  are  parsimonious,  and  they  live  ill.  In  Marseilles, 
at  Lyons,  in  Briey,  everywhere,  they  have  taken  the  sort  of  job 

1 Lair,  p.  554.  Cf.  Blanchard,  p.  185. 

2 L.  and  M.  Bonneff,  La  classe  ouvriere  (Paris,  1912),  p.  299. 

3 Merrheim,  “ L ’organisation  patronale,”  p.  16. 

4 C.  Gide  et  M.  Lambert,  “ Les  troubles  d’ Aigues-Mortes,”  Revue  d' Economic 

Politique,  September-October,  1893,  pp.  839-841. 

6 Caillard  (pp.  135  f.)  believes  that  acceptance  of  a low  wage  by  Italians  occa- 
sions the  abandonment  of  a field  of  employment  by  the  French.  He  cites  a number 
of  districts  where  the  latter  have  gradually  withdrawn  from  an  employment  taken 
up  by  foreigners.  Cf.  Blanchard,  p.  242. 


FRANCE 


143 


that  men  associate  with  inferior  capacities.  Everywhere,  too, 
they  live  in  groups  so  that  all  may  see  how  they  are  marked  off 
from  others.1  Sometimes  they  become  naturalized,  more  fre- 
quently in  fact  than  the  equally  numerous  Belgians;  but  their 
impelling  motive  is  often  to  get  work.2  They  rarely  intermarry 
with  the  French.3  Generally  the  people  of  France,  when  not 
indifferent  to  their  presence,  have  inclined  to  sympathize  with  the 
labor  point  of  view.  Proposals  for  taxing  immigrants  and  for 
putting  restrictions  upon  their  coming  have  been  rife  for  more 
than  three  decades,  repeatedly  the  subject  of  debate  in  Parlia- 
ment and  the  press,  and  undoubtedly  an  important  symptom  of 
opinion,  even  though  they  have  not  yet  led  to  drastic  legislation.4 

What  have  the  Italians  earned  in  France,  and  how  have  they 
lived  ? 

In  agriculture  the  evidence  is  clear  enough.  Throughout  the 
South  in  recent  years  (before  the  war),  men  received  3-3.50  francs 
per  day  in  addition  to  lodging  and  food,  or  an  extra  franc  when 
these  were  not  provided;  women  a little  more  than  half  as  much. 

1 “ The  Italian  of  the  people,  at  Paris,  remains  very  Italian,’’  writes  Mile. 
Schirmacher,  adding  “ he  remains  the  ‘ macaroni  ’ [a  popular  sobriquet].”  Op. 
cit.,  p.  129. 

2 It  is  certain  that  the  naturalization  law  of  1889  prompted  much  change  of 
citizenship  on  the  part  of  Italians.  Children  bom  in  France,  notably  the  children 
of  the  Italian  agricultural  proprietors  of  the  South,  commonly  grow  up  into  French 
citizenship. 

3 In  Marseilles  about  a third  of  the  Italians  who  marry  are  said  to  choose  life 
companions  of  French  citizenship,  but  these  are  usually  persons  of  the  older  Italian 
stock. 

4 Professor  Pic  is  of  those  who  have  held  public  action  to  be  desirable.  See  his 
Traite  elementaire  de  legislation  industrielle  (3d  ed.,  Paris,  1909),  pp.  rs6-r6s.  For 
another  discussion  of  suggested  plans  for  legislation,  see  Lair  (pp.  559-562)  who,  on 
economic  grounds,  defends  immigration.  The  names  of  those  who  have  led  the 
discussion  in  Parliament  are  given  by  Levasseur,  p.  461.  Cf.  H.  F.,  “La  main- 
d’ceuvre,”  etc.,  pp.  529-533- 

Chiefly  by  international  agreement  and  concession,  some  considerable  improve- 
ments have  come  since  1900  in  the  position  of  Italian  laborers,  particularly  as  re- 
gards the  victims  of  industrial  accidents.  See  the  excellent  account  by  Professor 
S.  Gemma,  II  diritto  internazionale  del  lavoro  (Rome,  1912),  pp.  79-99.  For  the 
text  of  the  Italo-French  convention  of  June  10,  i9ro  for  the  protection  of  minors, 
momentous  for  its  bearings  on  employment  in  the  glass  works,  etc.,  see  Bolleltino 
dell’  Ufficio  del  Lavoro,  July,  1910,  pp.  r66-r69- 


144 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


What  men  have  been  paid  in  the  olive  oil  mills,  four  to  five  francs 
per  day  and  their  lodging,  has  been  a common  wage  for  work 
requiring  little  skill.  All  these  earnings  have  permitted  some 
saving.  Woman  and  child  flower  gatherers,  paid  on  a piece  basis, 
have  received  i. 50-1. 75  francs  per  day,  but  have  been  able  to  put 
by  very  little  of  it.  In  Corsica,  out  of  a wage  of  about  two  francs 
per  day,  men  have  saved  as  much  as  200  francs  a year  and  even 
more.1 

Yet  every  centime  set  aside  is  a centime  purchased  by  priva- 
tion. The  workmen  sleep  anywhere,  unregardful  of  personal 
cleanliness,  a dozen  or  twenty  occupying  a single  room.  “ At 
harvest  time  they  throw  themselves  pele-mele  upon  the  straw  of 
their  huts,  letting  pass  whole  weeks  without  undressing.” 2 When 
they  work  in  groups  one  may  be  designated  as  a steward  to  pre- 
pare the  polenta  and  other  accustomed  dishes.  But,  except  when 
their  board  is  part  of  their  wage,  they  eat  too  little.  When  wine 
also  is  a part,  they  often  drink  to  excess.  In  passing  it  may  be 
noted  that  the  men,  unlike  the  women,  easily  drift  away  from 
religious  exercises. 

In  the  urban  centers  the  situation  is  not  greatly  different. 
“Taking  all  the  great  colonies  in  Paris,”  wrote  Mile.  Schirmacher, 
“ the  labor  section  of  the  Italian  is  incontestably  the  most  primi- 
tive.” 3 It  includes  the  most  illiterate  and  those  that  five  the  most 
plainly.  The  Belgian  drinks,  but  not  the  Italian,  who  has  come 
emphatically  for  gain.4  In  the  quarter  of  La  Villette  soup  made 
of  stale  bread  crusts  is  currently  consumed.  “ For  a Frenchman 
to  buy  it  would  be  misery  and  humiliation.”  5 Nine-tenths  of  the 
models  are  said  to  five  in  the  greatest  poverty.  Though  their  pay 
is  good  (the  women  receive  more  than  the  men),  there  is  a perni- 
cious morte  saison;  and  loose  relations  of  the  sexes  are  general.6 

1 Berio,  pp.  55  S.;  Blanchard,  pp.  184,  188  f.;  Caillard,  pp.  64,  69;  Tomielli, 
p.  106. 

2 Blanchard,  p.  190.  3 Op.  cit.,  p.  rjo. 

4 Caillard  (p.  78)  makes  the  same  observation  regarding  the  Belgian  and  Italian 

agricultural  laborers. 

6 Schirmacher,  p.  132. 

6 Ibid.,  p.  147.  Cf.  de’  Calboli,  op.  cit.;  for  all  the  workers  he  describes,  except 
the  glaziers,  the  record  is  one  of  hard  terms  of  labor,  the  destruction  of  health  and 


FRANCE 


145 


In  Marseilles,  6 francs  has  been  a common  rate  of  pay  for  irregu- 
lar work;  but  in  the  factories,  3.50  francs  for  the  men  and  2.25  for 
the  women.  It  is  very  hard,  however,  to  save.  The  South  Italians 
of  the  old  town  “ live  crowded  in  houses  freshened  by  little  air  or 
sunlight,  where  — unlike  the  rest  of  the  city  — the  most  elemen- 
tary rules  of  hygiene  are  still  unknown.  The  streets  are  alive 
with  troops  of  boys,  many  of  whom,  from  the  age  of  seven  or 
eight  years,  are  bootblacks.”  1 In  the  five  years  1901-05,  when 
28,868  Italians  settled  in  Marseilles,  14,513  were  repatriated 
because  indigent,  infirm,  or  old,  by  the  Italian  consulate  or  by 
Italian  societies.  Alcoholism  has  been  a frequent  vice  in  the 
great  port.  Here  and  at  Toulon  hundreds  of  Italian  girls  have 
been  found  in  prostitution,  more,  it  would  seem,  than  in  any  other 
European  center  of  immigration.2  Of  an  interest  in  forms  of 
solidarity,  and  a civic  sense,  the  great  Italian  population  of 
Marseilles  has  given  little  evidence. 

In  the  quarter  century  which  has  elapsed  since  Italian  children 
began  to  work  in  the  glass  industry  at  Lyons,  important  changes 
have  come.  Where  ten  years  was  the  minimum  age  for  employ- 
ment, thirteen  has  become  so.  Where  the  incettatori  once  made 
their  arrangements  directly  with  the  fathers  in  Caserta  or  Basili- 
cata (paying  100-150  fire  for  the  right  to  hire  their  boys  for  two 
or  three  years),  they  have  more  recently  made  written  contracts 
with  the  children;  and  the  latter  have  oftener  been  accompanied 
to  France  by  their  parents.  While  vegetables  cooked  in  water 
were  once  the  staple  food  served  to  the  children,  macaroni  and 
other  substantial  dishes  are  now  oftener  provided.  But  the 
children’s  ages  are  still  given  falsely  — a government  investiga- 
tion found  300  under  age  — and  at  busy  times  the  eight-hour 
shift  is  supplanted  by  a twelve-hour.  Even  eight  hours,  however, 
and  tender  years,  are  too  much  for  the  porteurs  who  must  carry 
away  the  freshly  blown  glass  amidst  great  heat,  humidity,  and  gas 
fumes;  and  whose  eyes  are  hurt  by  the  flashes  of  light.  Boys  as 

morals,  and  slight  pecuniary  gains.  The  traffic  in  children  is  much  less  than  it 
once  was.  Florenzano  (p.  157)  declared  that  in  1867,  during  the  world  exposition 
in  Paris,  1544  Italian  begging  children  were  arrested. 

1 Lelli,  p.  61.  Cf.  Bemardy,  p.  226;  Levasseur,  p.  898. 

2 Paolucci  de’  Calboli,  p.  234. 


146  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

well  as  adults  seek  refreshment  in  alcoholic  drinks.  Fell  diseases 
are  transmitted  by  lip  contacts  on  tools.  Dress,  food,  light,  and 
air  are  insufficient  for  daily  living.  After  a few  years  the  children 
go  back  to  Italy,  uneducated,  without  a trade,  and  permanently 
hurt  in  health.1 

In  Lyons,  the  many  North  Italian  seasonal  immigrants,  who 
have  come  as  mechanical  and  building  laborers,  have  been  better 
off  than  any  other  group  and  able  to  make  some  savings.  On  the 
other  hand  the  South  Italian  adult  workers  of  the  glass  factories, 
living  in  dirt  and  ignorance  — “ in  indescribable  abandonment,” 
as  an  observer  told,2  have  been  despised  by  the  French  and 
ignored  by  their  Northern  brethren.  The  2000  North  Italian  girls 
in  the  silk  mills  in  recent  years  were  able  to  save  10-30  francs  a 
month  out  of  their  wages  of  1.50-3  francs  for  a ten-hour  day. 
But  they  have  often  lived  in  the  very  lowest  quarters  of  the  city, 
and  when  they  have  married,  report  is,  it  has  usually  been  after 
the  birth  of  a child.3 

When  the  Italians  first  came  to  Briey  — in  Nancy,  an  older 
field,  they  were  repelled  by  the  French  workmen  — they  found 
only  rural  villages.  Farmhouses  were  made  over  to  lodge  them 
and  temporary  barracks  erected;  for  food  and  shelter,  the  large 
sum  of  80-90  francs  per  month  had  to  be  paid.  So  the  better 
grades  of  workmen  departed,  and  their  ranks  were  not  refilled. 

1 B.  Berio,  “ I ragazzi  italiani  nelle  vetrerie  del  Lionese,”  Rivista  Colon! ale, 
February  16-28,  1913,  pp.  124-127;  see  also  pp.  127-130,  the  report  of  a discussion 
in  the  Italian  Parliament.  Cf.  Ferliga,  pp.  28-30;  annual  report  of  the  Commis- 
sioner-General of  Emigration,  Boll.  Emig.,  1904,  No.  7,  pp.  108  f.;  Perrod,  ‘‘I 
minorenni  italiani,”  etc.,pp.  50-33;  idem,  “ Immigrazione  e colonia,”  etc.,  pp.  222- 
235;  G.  Sommi-Picenardi,  “La  tratta  dei  piccoli  italiani  in  Francia,”  Nuova  Anto- 
logia,  February  1,  1902,  esp.  pp.  472  ff.;  A.  A.  Bernardy,  “ L’emigrazione  delle 
donne  e dei  franciulli  dal  Piemonte,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1912,  No.  10,  esp.  pp.  57-60. 

2 Ferliga,  p.  22. 

3 At  the  beginning  of  the  century,  when  there  were  fewer  girls,  Perrod  {Emig.  e 
Col.,  1903,  i’,  pp.  225  f.)  took  a favorable  view.  Cf.  L.  Basso,  report  on  Lyons, 
Emig.  e Col.,  1893,  pp.  218  f.;  Ferliga,  pp.  24-27;  Berio,  Relazione  still'  emigrazione 
delle  donne,  etc.,  pp.  1-18.  Signorina  Berio’s  account  (pp.  30-36)  of  St.  Rambert 
(Ain),  half  of  whose  4000  people  are  Italians,  of  whom  in  turn  800  are  girls,  is 
challenged  by  the  Direttore  dell’  Ufficio  di  Confine  in  Modane,  in  Vita  Italiana  all' 
Estero,  November,  1913,  pp.  372  f.;  but  the  criticism  itself  admits  that  the  girls 
live  five,  six,  even  eight  to  a room,  where  they  attempt  to  sleep,  cook,  and  pass  their 
free  hours. 


FRANCE 


1 47 


A call  for  men  who  would  bring  wives  and  children  met  little 
response.1  Such  families  as  did  settle  in  Briey  always  boarded 
workmen,  sometimes  twelve  or  fifteen  at  a time,  four  to  six  in  a 
room.  The  hard  toil  of  the  mines,  the  darkness  and  monotony  of 
the  dank  galleries,  called  for  contrasts.  Wives  and  daughters 
among  these  immigrant  families  partook  in  a common  immorality, 
often  submitting  to  a sort  of  polyandry.2 

Brawls  and  crime,  turning  commonly  upon  women,  were  fre- 
quent, the  harder  to  repress  because  flight  across  the  border  was 
easy.  The  departmental  police  (no  municipal  police  existed) 
were  intimidated  and  helpless.3  Although  the  victims  of  crime 
were  usually  immigrants,  the  native  inhabitants  were  led  to  guard 
their  steps.  Religious  influences  were  few.  “ An  atheist  and  cor- 
rupt community,”  M.  Vignes  has  generalized,  “ is  fatally  destined 
to  anarchy  and  disorder.”  For  many  years,  the  children  were 
suffered  to  grow  up  in  ignorance;  but  in  1913  the  companies  were 
prevailed  upon  to  make  some  provision  for  schools.4  Various 
diseases,  especially  tuberculosis  and  those  associated  with  loose 
living,  made  grievous  inroads  upon  the  health  of  the  workers; 
and  the  victims  of  industrial  accident  were  many. 

Though  the  Italians  came  to  Briey  to  save  money,  they  failed, 
in  innumerable  cases,  to  do  so.  “ If,”  wrote  Dr.  Vinci,  “ you 
except  two  or  three  thousand  able  and  fortunate  men  who  earn 
high  wages  and  work  regularly,  so  not  losing  the  benefit  of  their 

1 In  1910,  according  to  an  official  count  quoted  by  Professor  Vignes,  eight  out 
of  nine  of  the  Italian  population  were  men.  Op.  cit.,  p.  688. 

2 There  were  houses  (and  inns)  owned  by  the  mines,  sometimes  let  at  a lower  rate 
if  the  tenants  would  take  boarders.  When,  as  more  usually  happened,  there  were 
restrictions  on  this  practice,  the  company  houses  fell  into  disfavor.  A dominant 
institution  was  the  “cantine,”  a kind  of  expanded  boarding  house  with  a downstairs 
used  for  eating  and  drinking,  gambling  and  dancing,  and  an  upstairs  used  for  sleep- 
ing. Two  men  in  a bed,  beds  used  day  and  night,  sheets  changed  rarely,  fifteen  or 
twenty  beds  crowded  together,  were  usual.  The  “bacana”  (housekeeper)  and  her 
servants  made  an  income  from  immorality.  At  the  end  of  the  week  dancing  girls 
arrived  from  other  towns. 

3 “ The  Briey  court,  despite  the  relative  tolerance  of  the  authorities,  is  of  all 
French  courts  that  which  has  to  deal  with  the  most  crimes  and  misdemeanors.” 
Raynaud,  p.  213. 

4 See  two  notes  in  Rivista  Coloniale,  September  15,  1913,  p.  144,  and  October  15, 
1913,  pp.  204  f. 


1 48  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

earnings  through  unemployment,  and  who  lead  a regular  life, 
then  the  mass  of  our  laborers,  I am  sure,  do  not  with  their  present 
wages  realize  a sufficient  margin  to  compensate  them  for  their 
sacrifices  in  emigration  and  their  daily  risks.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  thousand  temptations  offered  to  these  people  unused  to  indul- 
gence are  such  that  the  slim  savings  which  might  take  place  in 
another  environment  are  here  not  made  at  all.”  It  was  only,  he 
believed,  the  miners  who  could  profitably  come  to  Briey,  for  the 
skilled  worker  averaged  1 2 francs  a day,  and  his  two  men  got  6- 
9 (but  the  shift  was  of  twelve  hours,  with  weekly  turns).  Prob- 
ably, however,  those  who  saved  money  were  more  numerous  than 
this  statement  concedes.1 

In  the  social  conditions  of  Briey,  the  passing  years  brought 
some  improvements.  I have  mentioned  elementary  schools.  The 
police  force  was  got  under  better  discipline.  The  older  shacks 
were  demolished.  But  the  women  whose  function  it  was,  however 
blindly,  to  restore  the  balance  of  the  sexes,  were  only  licensed  in 
their  prostitution.  The  boarding  system,  the  cantine,  over- 
crowding and  the  rest  continued  — until  the  red  torch  of  the 
invader  was  carried  into  the  country.2 

“ If,  by  way  of  conclusion  to  the  study  I have  made  and  the 
things  I have  set  forth,  one  should  ask  whether  or  no  the  Italian 
movement  into  France  ought  to  be  facilitated  or  promoted,  I 
incline  to  think  that  most  persons  would  reply,  no.”  So,  in  1902, 
wrote  the  Italian  ambassador  at  Paris  at  the  end  of  a copious 
report  to  his  government.3  Weighing  the  success  or  failure  of  so 
complicated  an  adventure  as  this  is  sufficiently  hazardous,  and  I 
am  not  now  even  attempting  to  consider  some  factors  that  in  the 
final  view  must  not  be  ignored.  It  is  clear,  however,  that  the 

1 Vinci,  p.  25.  Ten  years  earlier  the  representatives  of  local  employers  claimed 
that  laborers  could  save  half  their  wage  of  3-7  francs  per  day  “ by  dint  of  great 
parsimony  ” (Bidou,  p.  224).  Raynaud  and  Vignes  both  consider  that  savings 
have  been  made. 

2 On  conditions  in  French  Lorraine,  see,  besides  the  references  given  (including 
Bonneff  and  Villari),  G.  Levy,  “ En  Meurthe-et-Moselle;  les  bassins  de  Briey  et 
de  Longwy,”  Le  Mouvement  Socialist,  December,  1912,  pp.  341-349. 

3 Tornielli,  p.  192;  cf.  p.  73. 


FRANCE 


149 


Italian  who  comes  must  work  hard  at  tasks  that  are  humble  and 
ill  paid,  those  that  Frenchmen  avoid  in  every  alternative.  Con- 
tending against  frequent  change  of  employment,  the  selected 
victim  of  every  crisis,1  paying  at  every  step  the  penalties  of  igno- 
rance, rolling  up  losses  as  he  rolls  up  gains,  finding  the  unexpected 
along  with  the  expected,  he  is  made  over  in  the  end  into  a different 
person.  Somewhat  he  safeguards  his  course  by  awaiting  a sum- 
mons from  his  employer  of  the  previous  season,  or  by  responding 
only  to  the  call  of  a compatriot  already  in  France,  or  by  heeding 
the  warnings  available  to  all  who  get  a passport  before  migrating. 
But  even  such  forethought,  when  it  exists  and  can  be  applied,  has 
but  limited  powers  of  accomplishment.  In  the  scattered  colonies 
and  the  newer  settlements,  his  mutual  aid  societies  have  been 
few,  non-existent  or  weak;  hospital  care,  except  in  emergencies, 
has  been  proffered  only  under  restrictions;  protective  agencies, 
Italian  or  French,  for  children  and  women,  have  been  few.  Briey 
and  Lyons  are  witness  to  the  forces  of  inertia  and  self-interest 
with  which  reform  must  contend.2 

No  one  can  doubt  that  France  has  gained  by  the  labor  of  her 
immigrants.  In  Lorraine  she  was  able  to  provide  from  her  own 
population  only  a minority  of  her  workers,  and  at  many  other 
points  she  has  been  forced  to  rely  upon  aliens.  Her  gain  is  a net 
one,  for  she  insists  upon  no  standard  of  living  and  no  performance 
of  a civic  role.  She  admits  no  present  responsibility  for  comfort 
and  makes  no  guarantee  of  future  welfare.  Her  account  is  well- 
nigh  complete  when  a wage  has  been  paid.  During  the  war  she 
drew  thousands  of  swarthy  laborers  from  Algeria  to  take  the 
places,  in  vineyards  and  industry,  of  the  absent  Italians.  She 
will  not  indefinitely  be  content  with  such  a substitution. 

Will  Italy  after  the  war  again  despatch  her  sons  to  France  ? 
Once,  in  the  twelfth  century,  she  sent  great  scholars  thither  — 

1 In  1907,  for  example,  Italians  were  warned  that  because  of  a vineyard  crisis, 
they  must  not  count  on  employment  in  the  South.  Boll.  Emig.,  1907,  No.  13, 
p.  126.  In  1908,  because  of  depression  in  Longwy,  they  must  expect  no  work  the 
following  spring.  Ibid.,  1908,  No.  7,  p.  100.  Cf.  Ibid.,  1909,  No.  9,  p.  115;  1910, 
No.  18,  p.  249. 

2 Berio  (p.  125)  claimed  that  the  advantages  secured  in  Lyons  by  de’  Calboli  and 
Professor  Schiaparelli  some  years  previously  had  been  well-nigh  lost. 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


150 

Lanfranc,  Anselm.  Later,  in  the  fifteenth  to  the  seventeenth 
centuries,  she  sent  skilled  artisans,  makers  of  fine  garments, 
workers  in  ceramics,  glass,  the  manufacture  of  scientific  instru- 
ments, who  taught  their  arts  to  the  French.  In  the  early  nine- 
teenth century,  political  refugees  sought  the  friendly  protection  of 
the  northern  land.1  And  now  it  is  the  day  of  the  laborer.  The 
opposition  of  the  French  workmen  may  yet  effect  some  sort  of 
exclusion,  but  it  is  also  possible  that  men  who  have  fought  to- 
gether in  a great  cause  will  hereafter  more  willingly  work  together. 
Unless  restrictive  action  should  yet  be  taken,  and  unless  the 
sources  of  Italian  emigration  should  run  dry,  the  movement  of 
immigration  is  likely  to  be  resumed  - — interrupted  only,  not 
terminated,  by  the  Great  War. 

1 See  a study  by  C.  Dejob,  “ Un  bel  libro  da  fare,”  in  Raccolta  di  studii  critici 
dedicata  ad  Alessandro  D’ Ancona,  pp.  133-143,  Florence,  1901. 


CHAPTER  IX 


GERMANY 

Although  the  Italians,  bent  on  settlement  or  trade,  have  mi- 
grated into  Germany  for  twenty  centuries,  the  modern  immi- 
grants are  successors  of  the  old  only  in  point  of  time.  Their 
coming  has  a new  origin,  a new  character.  Its  beginning  is  typi- 
fied in  those  Venetian  mountain  folk  who,  as  itinerant  vendors, 
many  decades  ago  crossed  the  Alps  afoot  or  with  their  carts  to 
sell  merchandise  in  the  villages  of  the  Rhine  and  Danube  valleys. 
Of  late  years  — it  is  naturally  the  pre-war  period  of  which  I 
write — the  mountain  peoples  have  continued  their  immigration, 
but  their  numbers  have  vastly  increased  and  they  have  drawn 
into  the  current  Italians  from  every  corner  of  Italy,  and  have 
scattered  over  all  parts  of  Germany. 

It  cannot  be  said  that  the  movement  has  had  breadth  until 
recently.  As  early  as  i860  some  hundreds  of  Italians  worked  in 
the  mines  of  Westphalia.1  In  South  Germany  there  were  a larger 
number:  a picturesque  collection  of  braziers,  chair  menders, 
street  merchants,  from  North  Italy;  sellers  of  marble  and  ala- 
baster statuettes,  from  Lucca;  men  from  Caserta  who  displayed 
accomplished  bears;  and  the  unfailing  street  musicians.  In  this 
early  period,  however,  transportation  was  still  difficult.  The 
St.  Bernard  Pass  had  been  used  since  ancient  times,  the  St.  Goth- 
ard  since  the  Middle  Ages,  but  it  required  the  completion  of  the 
railroad  over  the  Brenner  Pass  (1867)  and  the  St.  Gothard  (1881) 
to  make  travel  less  arduous  and  costly.  It  was,  in  fact,  we  are 
told,  the  “ eisenponeri  ” (Eisenbahn-eri)  themselves  whose  earn- 
ings in  the  construction  of  the  Brenner  railway  and  similar  under- 
takings stimulated  friends  and  relatives  in  their  native  Venetia 
to  emigrate  into  Bavaria,  Wurttemberg,  and  Baden.  In  1872, 

1 G.  Pertile,  “ Gli  italiani  in  Germania,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1914,  Nos.  n and  15, 
Pt.  i,  pp.  21  f. 


152 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


Wurttemberg  contained  some  thousands  of  Italians.  Before  the 
decade  was  ended,  large  numbers  had  come  to  Bavaria,  Baden, 
and  Alsace-Lorraine;  about  Cologne  they  were  building  fortifica- 
tions and  railways,  and  in  Saxony  were  working  upon  bridges, 
railways,  barracks  — even  such  edifices  as  the  royal  theater.  In 
the  next  decade,  they  reached  into  the  north  of  Germany;  though 
they  were  chiefly  building  workers  and  general  laborers,  they  also 
displayed  in  the  cities  their  characteristic  itinerant  occupations. 
In  the  West,  the  industrial  heart  of  the  country,  they  increased 
rapidly  both  in  the  decade  of  the  eighties  and  that  of  the  nineties, 
and  were  soon  more  numerous  than  anywhere  else  in  Germany. 
After  1895,  and  again  after  the  depression  of  1901-02,  a great  and 
sudden  addition  to  their  numbers  took  place,  and  finally  in  1906- 
07,  a high  point  was  reached  which  has  not  since  been  exceeded. 

Only  a dim  and  flickering  light  is  thrown  by  the  censuses  upon 
the  numerical  strength  of  this  immigration.  The  Italians  are  not 
a population;  they  are  a stream  which  surges  forward  and  sub- 
sides, acknowledging  no  law  but  that  of  change.  In  1880,  7841 
were  counted;  in  1890, 13,080;  in  1900,  after  the  first  great  influx, 
69,738;  in  1905,  98,165;  in  1910,  104,204.  Here  is  evidence  at 
least  of  increase.  But  the  figures  all  refer  to  December,  when 
many,  if  not  most,  of  the  Italians  were  again  at  home  with  their 
families.  Of  those  present  in  Germany  in  the  summer,  no  true 
measure  exists,  but  an  estimate  of  175,000  for  recent  pre-war 
years  would  not  err  far  from  the  truth.1  According  to  the  winter 

1 Pertile,  Pt.  i,  p.  40,  quoted  90,000  for  Prussia  in  1906  as  a figure  reached  by  the 
Prussian  Minister  of  the  Interior,  and  he  estimated  200,000  for  all  Germany  at  that 
time.  S.  Jacini  (“  Die  italienische  Auswanderung  nach  Deutschland,”  Weltwirt- 
schaftliches  Archiv,  January,  1915,  p.  128)  estimated  not  less  than  175,000.  In 
a German  study  (“  Die  auslandischen  Wanderarbeiter,”  Reichsarbeitsblalt,  March, 
April,  September,  1915,  p.  209),  the  position  is  taken  that  the  figures  from  Italian 
sources  are  too  high.  Italians  to  whom  legitimation  cards  were  issued  in  the  year 
1911-12  numbered  52,177;  but  this  figure,  which  in  any  case  touches  few  Italians 
outside  of  Prussia  requires  “ a rather  considerable  increase  ” (p.  207).  At  the 
Landratsamter,  in  Prussia  alone,  registrations  in  the  years  1907-n  ran  from  95,000 
to  115,000,  but  these  figures,  by  reason  of  duplications,  are  deemed  to  be  15-20  per 
cent  too  high.  (They  probably  correspond  to  the  90,000  indicated  to  Pertile  by  the 
Prussian  ministry  in  1906.)  In  accessible  volumes  of  the  Gewerblkhe  Betriebsstatislik 
(census  of  June  12,  1907)  I have  found  no  particularization  by  race  or  nationality. 
Subsequently,  such  statistics  were  published  in  the  Slatistiches  Jahrbuch  fur  das 


GERMANY  I S3 

census  of  1910,  the  Italians  were  most  numerous  in  Prussia  and 
next  in  Alsace-Lorraine,  Baden,  Wurttemberg,  and  Bavaria.1 

The  industrial  census  of  1967  found  no  less  than  121,000  Ital- 
ians, mainly  unskilled  workers,  engaged  in  manufacturing,  mining, 
and  building.  In  mining  and  smelting  there  were  23,000,  con- 
stituting 3.7  per  cent  of  their  kind  in  Germany.  In  stone  and 
earthwork  there  were  over  30,300,  who  formed  5.7  per  cent  of  all 
those  of  their  occupation.  In  the  building  trades  were  57,400  — 
nearly  half  of  the  Italians  — and  they  were  actually  6.3  per  cent 
of  their  kind  in  Germany.  Besides  these,  the  predominating  types, 
the  census  disclosed  4400  workers  in  the  textile  trades,  of  whom 
three-quarters  were  women,  600  in  the  chemical  industry,  1100 
in  machine  employments,  1400  in  metal  working,  nearly  900 
in  commerce,  finally,  1400  occupied  in  inns  and  hostelries  — to 
name  but  the  larger  groups.2 

In  two  respects,  the  immigration  of  Italians  into  Germany  has 
been  strikingly  unlike  that  into  France.  It  has  not  colonized  in 
the  great  cities.  Berlin  and  Cologne  have  not  been  centers,  like 
Marseilles  and  Paris,  where  Italians  have  settled  to  reside  and 
work,  spending  winters  as  well  as  summers.  Perhaps  a living  has 
been  harder  to  secure  in  the  winter,  perhaps  the  language  barrier 
has  been  more  awkward  to  surmount,  perhaps  the  temperament, 
mood,  and  customs  of  the  people  have  made  adaptation  more 
difficult  and  failure  of  adaptation  more  grievous  — whatever  the 
reason  the  fact  is  patent.  Secondly  (and  this  is  scarcely  less  note- 
worthy) the  Italians  have  entirely  held  aloof  from  farming  pur- 
suits. In  no  other  country  to  which  they  have  thronged  have 
they  so  generally  confined  themselves  to  non-agricultural  activi- 
ties. Difference  of  crops  and  mode  of  production  in  South 
Germany;  the  large  families  there,  with  always  enough  sons  to 

Deutsche  Reich,  1912,  pp.  10-15.  They  show  for  all  Germany  125,520  Italian  men 
and  women  occupied  industrially.  For  the  Italian  population  there  should  be  added 
to  this  figure  unemployed  children  and  wives  and  all  the  Italians  whose  immigra- 
tion had  not  taken  place  so  early  in  the  year. 

1 Prussia,  42,480  (Westphalia,  10,759,  Hesse-Nassau  2384,  Rhenish  Prussia, 
2I>I3S)>  Alsace-Lorraine,  31,367,  Baden,  11,379,  Wurttemberg,  6970,  Bavaria, 
6946  (Upper  Bavaria,  3028),  Saxony,  2117,  Hesse,  1047.  See  Vierteljahrshefte  zur 
Statistik  des  Deutschen  Reiches,  1912,  No.  3,  pp.  108  f. 

2 Statistisches  Jahrbuch,  1912,  pp.  io-rs. 


154 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


carry  forward  the  work  of  the  fields;  in  sparser  East  Germany 
the  readily  controllable  immigration  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
Poles,  Russians,  and  other  neighboring  peoples  who  have  sufficed 
to  the  needs  of  large-estate  farming;  these  conditions  may  ex- 
plain an  unparalleled  situation.1 

In  Germany,  as  in  France,  the  women  and  children  of  the  Ital- 
ians have  halted  mainly  in  the  South,  in  parts  nearest  to  their  own 
country.2  There,  however,  the  resemblance  ends.  They  have 
not  been  flower  gatherers  and  vintage  hands,  but  largely  workers 
in  the  brick  ovens  of  Bavaria,  Wurttemberg,  and  the  Rhenish 
Palatinate.  Even  before  the  snow  has  melted,  the  proprietors  or 
their  agents,  or  most  commonly  the  accordant i (Italian  or  some- 
times German  middlemen  who  contract  to  produce  a season’s 
output  of  bricks,  tiles,  tubes,  and  the  like)  have  been  wont  to  go 
into  Udine  and  other  parts  of  Venetia  to  hire  their  workers.  The 
latter,  who  include  many  men  also,  have  commonly  entered  Ger- 
many through  Austria  by  the  route  of  Pontebba-Salzburg  or  that 
of  Ala-Kufstein.  In  Upper  and  Lower  Bavaria  and  in  Swabia, 
there  have  been  perhaps  a thousand  furnaces,  where  from  the  end 
of  March  to  the  second  half  of  September,  12,000  to  15,000  Ital- 
ians have  in  recent  years  found  employment,  constituting  half  or 
two-thirds  of  the  whole  labor  force.  Between  Germans  and  Ital- 
ians one  can  draw  a sharp  line,  the  former  working  in  establish- 
ments using  machinery,  the  latter  willing  to  toil  all  day  long  with 
their  hands  in  the  wet  clay.  It  is  scarcely  too  much  to  say  that  so 
far  as  the  establishments  using  hand  labor  are  concerned  — all 
are  small  and  scattered  through  the  country  — the  industry  has 
been  kept  alive  by  the  Italians.3 

1 Many  years  ago  an  attempt  made  by  agrarian  societies  and  large  employers 
to  establish  Italian  families  in  certain  parts  of  South  Germany  collapsed  entirely. 
See  B.  Lambertenghi,  “ Gli  italiani  nel  distretto  consolare  di  Francoforte  sul  Meno,” 
Emig.  e Col.,  1905,  iui,  p.  22. 

2 Within  the  state  of  Baden,  it  is  worth  noting,  the  women  have  increased  as  the 
Swiss  border  has  been  left  behind.  See  H.  Pfeiffer,  Die  Zusammensetzung  der  Bezol- 
kerung  des  Grosshersoglums  Baden  nach  der  Geburtigkeit,  auf  Grund  der  Volkszahhing 
vom  1 December,  igoo  (Stuttgart,  1909),  p.  165. 

3 P.  Sandicchi,  “ I fornaciai  italiani  in  Baviera,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1912,  No.  12, 
pp.  3-34;  A.  Cabrini,  “Nelle  fornaci  di  Baviera,”  Rivisla  Colon  idle,  October  25, 


GERMANY 


155 


In  Baden  and  in  Alsace,  girls  and  women  have  been  operatives 
in  the  cotton,  silk,  and  jute  mills.  From  small  beginnings  in  Baden 
and  Wurttemberg  this  immigration  has  reached  very  large  pro- 
portions, its  members  staying  more  and  more  into  the  winter. 
Often  entire  families  have  had  employment  in  the  factories.1 

Continuously,  since  Italian  immigration  began,  men,  women, 
and  children  have  worked  in  South  Germany  as  models,  street 
vendors  — of  roasted  chestnuts  in  winter  and  ice  cream  in  sum- 
mer— tinkers,  street  musicians,  and  the  like.  Because  it  has 
become  hard  to  secure  the  requisite  licenses  to  carry  on  some  of 
these  occupations,  fewer  immigrants  have  in  the  present  century 
tried  to  earn  their  living  by  them.  At  the  same  time  a great  in- 
crease has  taken  place  in  the  number  of  building  laborers  and  their 
kin.  Brick  and  stone  masons,  stonecutters,  hodcarriers,  pick  and 
shovel  workers,  coming  in  the  spring  either  individually  or  in 
groups  of  thirty  to  fifty,  have  undertaken  general  construction 
work,  railroad  building,  canalization,  and  other  large  enterprises 
requiring  more  hands  than  have  been  locally  available.  In  the 
summer  thousands  have  secured  employment  in  South  Germany, 
returning  to  North  Italy  after  the  first  frosts.  Immigrants  from 
South  Italy,  rated  as  poorer  workers  than  their  Northern  fellow 
countrymen,  have  almost  ceased  to  come.2 

It  is  into  the  west  of  Germany,  above  all  other  sections,  that  the 
Italians  have  gone.  Here  the  greatest  iron  mines  of  Europe  make 

1912,  pp.  304  f.;  Pertile,  Pt.  i,  pp.  103-109;  A.  De  Foresta,  G.  Pezzani,  P. 
Mondini,  and  T.  Schilling,  “La  Baviera  e la  emigrazione  italiana,”  Emig.  e Col., 
igos,  i;ii,  pp.  49-75;  G.  Federer,  “ La  colonia  italiana  nel  Wurttemberg,”  Emig.  e 
Col.,  1905,  iHi,  pp.  76-78;  report  on  Munich  consular  district  by  E.  Cova,  Emig.  e 
Col.,  1893,  pp.  260  f. 

1 Pertile,  Pt.  i,  pp.  116-120;  0.  Bornhausen,  “ Gli  italiani  nel  Baden,  Alsazia 
e nel  Palatinato  del  Reno,”  Emig.  e Col.,  1905,  iin,  pp.  79-8r;  Pfeiffer,  loc.  cit. 

2 Pertile,  sundry  passages;  B.  Lambertenghi,  “ Gli  italiani  in  Triberg,”  Boll. 
Emig.,  1905,  No.  8,  pp.  42  f.;  T.  Schilling,  “ L’immigrazione  italiana  in  Baviera,” 
Boll.  Emig.,  1904,  No.  15,  pp.  67!.;  P.  Mondini,  “L’immigrazione  italiana  nella 
Baviera  meridionale,  Boll.  Emig.,  1904,  No.  2,  pp.  10-13;  note  in  Boll.  Emig., 
1902,  No.  9,  p.  61;  De  Foresta,  Pezzani,  Mondini,  Schilling,  op.  cit.;  Federer,  op. 
cit.;  Pfeiffer,  pp.  164  f.  The  industrial  census  of  1907  counted  15,010  workers  in 
Bavaria,  10,099  in  Wurttemberg,  14,579  in  Baden;  Reichsarbeilsblatt,  March,  1913, 
p.  206. 


156  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

a subterranean  state  of  western  Lorraine;  the  mineral  belt  is 
continuous  with  that  of  French  Lorraine,  Luxemburg,  and  Bel- 
gium. Here  are  the  coal  fields  of  Germany;  an  area  about 
Aachen;  another  about  the  Saar,  running  east  to  the  Bavarian 
Palatinate,  south  and  west  to  Lorraine;  a third,  the  most  impor- 
tant on  the  continent,  along  the  entire  valley  of  the  Ruhr.  Here 
too  are  mines  of  subordinate  minerals,  stone  and  lime  quarries; 
textile  and  other  factories;  iron  and  steel  mills  having  an  output 
greater  than  any  save  those  of  England  and  the  United  States. 
All  these  together,  and  a network  of  railways  and  navigable 
streams,  have  constituted  the  magnet  which  before  the  war  drew 
more  than  a hundred  thousand  Italians  a year  to  Westphalia, 
Rhenish  Prussia,  and  Lorraine. 

They  first  came,  after  the  Franco-Prussian  war,  to  demolish  and 
build  anew  the  fortifications  about  Metz  and  Cologne.  Gradu- 
ally they  overspread  the  entire  district,  until,  in  recent  years,  they 
appeared  even  in  the  smallest  workplaces.  Once  they  came  only 
from  Lombardy  and  Venetia,  but  subsequently,  in  heavy  contin- 
gents, from  the  middle  and  even  the  southern  parts  of  the  king- 
dom. Perhaps  as  many  as  four  in  five,  in  recent  years,  had  been 
in  Germany  before  and  when  they  have  not  gone  back  to  previous 
employers  have  at  least  made  for  well-known  centers.  In  special 
trains  forty  hours  have  sufficed  (where  as  late  as  1900  four  days 
were  necessary)  to  make  the  journey  from  Ala  to  Dortmund. 
Clad  in  their  characteristic  garb  of  spacious  velvet  trousers  and 
red  belt,  a gay  shirt,  and  somber  coat,  with  forty  or  fifty  fire 
in  their  pockets  — enough  for  the  journey  — these  immigrants 
used  to  come  in  gangs  and  trainloads.  The  way  was  easy, 
frontier  conveniences  were  many,  and  at  Basel,  way  station  for 
all  who  came  by  the  St.  Gothard  and  for  most  who  came  by 
other  routes,  a special  waiting  room  had  been  prepared.  Some 
went  directly  into  the  northern  districts,  others  scattered  from 
Metz  as  a center.  While  a few  settled  in  small  growing  colonies, 
more  or  less  permanent,  the  majority  often  changed  their  place 
of  work. 

In  Lorraine,  the  Italians  have  been  coal  miners  in  the  eastern 
fields.  (The  Saar  mines,  continued  in  Rhenish  Prussia,  have 


GERMANY 


1 57 


been  governmental,  employing  only  Germans.)  In  the  northwest, 
in  the  Fentsch  district  and  the  valley  of  the  Orne,  they  have 
mined  iron  ore  for  twenty-five  years.  First  from  the  Alpss  lat- 
terly from  the  Apennines,  they  have  come  in  swelling  numbers, 
and  since  1900  have  established  themselves  with  their  families  at 
Hayingen,  at  Kneuttingen,  at  Gross-Moyeuvre.  Some  have  been 
miners,  some  their  helpers,  some  (the  youths)  have  assisted  in  the 
transportation  of  material  to  the  mine’s  entrance.  At  times  they 
have  amounted  to  a fourth  or  more  of  all  the  miners.  A majority 
of  the  Lorraine  Italians,  who  are  chiefly  from  Central  and  South 
Italy,  have  been  occupied  about  the  iron  and  steel  mills,  at 
Deutsch-Oth,  Redingen,  Diedenhofen,  and  other  places,  some 
digging,  some  loading  and  discharging  wagons  and  cars.  Many 
of  these  have  customarily  arrived  in  the  autumn  and  returned  to 
Italy  for  the  spring  planting.  Many  general  laborers  have  worked 
on  the  watercourses,  on  railway  construction,  including  the  build- 
ing of  strategic  lines,  and  such  tasks  as  the  demolition  and  rebuild- 
ing of  the  fortifications  at  Diedenhofen  and  Metz.  At  the  last- 
named  place  some  thousands  of  Italians  were  occupied  before  the 
war,  many  upon  the  construction  of  the  new  railway  station. 
Artisans  have  been  few  in  this  immigration.1 

In  Westphalia  and  Rhenish  Prussia,  Italians  have  been  present 
during  much  of  the  modern  industrial  epoch.  Before  1850,  the 
local  population  was  sufficient  to  work  the  coal  mines  of  the  Ruhr. 
With  an  enlarged  scale  of  exploitation  and  the  establishment  of 
iron  mills,  workers  were  drawn  from  the  farms,  from  remoter 
sections  of  Germany,  and  from  foreign  lands.  About  i860,  as  we 
have  seen,  a few  Italians  were  present.  In  December,  1893, 
about  a thousand  were  on  the  books  of  the  companies.  With  the 
further  growth  of  the  industry  they  maintained  their  numbers  at 
about  one  per  cent  of  the  working  force,  exceeded  only  by  natives 
of  Austria-Hungary  and  Holland.  The  miners  have  come  from 
Vicenza,  Belluno,  and  the  valleys  of  Piedmont,  and  if  the  years 

1 Pertile,  Pt.  i,  pp.  57,  69,  73  f.;  P.  Rochling,  “La  Lorena,  le  provincie  di  Cob- 
lenza  e di  Treviri  e l’immigrazione  italiana,  Boll.  Emig.,  1904,  No.  15,  pp.  3-12; 
idem,  “ La  Renania  e la  Lorena,  e l’immigrazione  italiana,”  Emig.  e Col.,  1905,  i"*, 
pp.  ioi-iii;  Ferliga,  “ L’emigrazione  italiana  in  Alsazia  Lorena,”  pp.  9,  15. 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


158 

1908  and  1909  may  be  accounted  representative,  some  two-thirds 
of  them  have  stayed  through  the  winter.1 

It  is  not,  however,  the  few  thousands  of  coal  miners  who  have 
made  of  the  Ruhr  and  the  lower  Rhine  the  region  — after  Lor- 
raine — where  the  Italians  have  most  congregated.  The  50,000- 
100,000  unskilled  or  low-skilled  laborers,  largely  Venetians  and 
Lombards,  who  in  each  of  the  last  fifteen  summers  before  the  war 
came  to  these  states,  did  their  work  of  excavation,  loading,  un- 
loading, and  the  like  in  manifold  connections.  All  along  the  Ruhr 
they  worked  in  the  stone  quarries,  many  making  stable  settle- 
ments with  their  families.  Near  Cologne  they  dug  peat.  Near  the 
Ruhr,  the  Sieg,  and  the  Saar  they  did  the  rough  work  of  the  iron 
and  steel  mills;  but  these  men  were  not  commonly  from  North 
Italy.  Many  had  employment  in  the  textiles.  Bricklayers  from 
the  Friuli  and  Belluno  and  the  less  skilled  sorts  of  building  la- 
borers were  numerous.  Wherever  Italian  collectivities  became 
sufficiently  large,  there  retail  vendors  throve,  beginning  some- 
times as  laborers  selling  Italian  food  products  to  their  associates. 
Nor  were  the  street  musicians  and  their  kindred  absent.2 

1 Wirtschaftliche  Entwickelung  des  Niederrheinisch-Westfalischen  Steinkohlen- 
Bergbaues  in  der  zweiten  Hdlfte  des  19  J ahrhunderts , herausgegeben  vom  Verein  fiir 
die  bergbaulichen  Interessen  im  Oberbergaintsbezirke  Dortmund  in  Gemeinschajt  mil 
der  Weslfdlischen  Berggewerkschaftskasse  und  dem  Rheinisch-W estfdMschem  Kohlen - 
syndikal  (Berlin,  1904),  iii,  pp.  36-38,  56.  Since  1902  the  Allgemeine  Knappschafls- 
verein  at  Bochum  has  kept  statistics  of  the  foreign  miners  in  its  membership.  On 
January  1,  1909,  the  Italians  numbered  3890,  having  reached  almost  that  number 
in  1907.  Depression  in  industry  reduced  them  by  January  r,  1910,  to  2814.  See 
F.  Syrup,  “ Studien  iiber  den  industriellen  Arbeiterwechsel,”  Archiv  fiir  exakte 
Wirtschaftsforschung,  1912,  p.  264. 

2 On  Westphalia  and  Rhenish  Prussia,  see  Pertile,  numerous  passages  in  Pt.  i, 
esp.  pp.  56-75,  97-127;  idem,  “Le  condizioni  degli  operai  italiani  nei  distretti 
consolari  di  Colonia,  Diisseldorf,  Saarbriicken  e Lussemburgo,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1908, 
No.  19,  pp.  3-51;  idem,  “ Rapporto  del  r.  addetto  per  l’emigrazione  presso  il  r. 
consolato  di  Colonia,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1905,  No.  18,  pp.  17-27;  P.  Donadio,  “ Relazione 
del  segretariato  di  Bochum,”  Rivista  di  Emigrazione , September-October,  1911, 
pp.  434-437;  Rochling,  “La  Lorena,  le  provincie  di  Coblenza,”  etc.;  O.  Heye, 
“ Gli  italiani  nel  distretto  consolare  di  Diisseldorf,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1904,  No.  rs, 
pp.  65-67;  T.  di  Oppenheim,  “ I minorenni  italiani  nel  distretto  consolare  di  Co- 
lonia,” Boll.  Emig.,  1903,  No.  10,  pp.  42-45;  idem,  “ L’immigrazione  italiana  nelle 
provincie  tedesche  del  Reno  e della  Westfalia,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1902,  No.  10,  pp.  3- 
14;  idem,  and  P.  Rochling,  “ La  Renania,  la  Vestfalia,  la  I.orena  e l’immigrazione 
italiana,”  Emig.  e Col.,  1905,  iiu,  pp.  84-111. 

The  industrial  census  of  1907  discovered  48,813  occupied  Italians  in  Prussia. 


GERMANY 


159 


All  in  all,  the  Italians  concentrated  in  Westphalia  and  the 
Rhineland,  outnumbered  by  only  one  foreign  people,  the  Aus- 
trians, and  approached  in  numbers  by  no  other,  have  played  a 
large  and  laborious  part  in  a great  industrial  development.  In 
contiguous  Lorraine,  they  have  far  exceeded  any  other  foreign 
people,  and  in  the  Palatinate,  Hesse,  Hesse-Nassau,  and  Waldeck, 
whose  industries  resemble  those  of  the  more  western  districts, 
they  have  likewise  been  numerous. 

Throughout  North  and  East  Germany,  the  Italians,  though 
they  began  to  come  soon  after  1880,  have  been  far  fewer.  The 
railway  journey  could  not  be  performed  for  the  forty  lire  that  have 
sufficed  to  carry  a Lombard  to  Lorraine.  Into  Hanover  or  Silesia 
have  gone  those  chiefly  who  have  expected  to  stay  a long  time  or 
who,  unemployed  in  the  West,  had  learned  of  a job  in  the  North. 
Street  musicians  and  retail  vendors,  nomads  all,  have  long  come. 
Girls  have  worked  in  the  factories  of  Magdeburg.  Earth  workers, 
especially  railway  and  tunnel  excavators,  have  gone  everywhere, 
into  Saxony  and  Thuringia,  to  Berlin,  even  to  Konigsberg.  In 
Silesia  the  Italians  have  been  coal  miners,  their  women  and  chil- 
dren toiling  at  the  tasks  above  ground.  Between  the  late  eighties 
and  the  middle  nineties  and  more  recently  again,  Italians  worked 
on  the  Kiel  Canal,  constituting  a veritable  colony  there.  Hun- 
dreds helped  make  the  fortifications  of  Heligoland.  In  Ham- 
burg and  Altona  general  laborers  have  had  employment.  Both 
masons  and  unskilled  men  have  worked  on  the  construction  of 
buildings.  Hundreds,  perhaps  thousands,  had  employment  over 
a long  period  on  the  gigantic  new  union  station  at  Leipsic.  Marble 
and  granite  sculptors,  years  ago,  ornamented  the  Reichstag 
building  in  Berlin.  Workers  in  stucco  and  cement,  employed  by 
masters  who  were  also  Italian,  introduced  “ terrazzo  ” work  into 
Silesia  and  Saxony,  Berlin,  Kiel,  and  other  cities.  Generally 
staying  only  a little  while  in  one  place,  most  of  the  immigrants 
have  returned  to  North  Italy  at  the  close  of  the  season.1 

1 E.  Pasteris,  “ Una  missione  sul  Baltico,”  Rivista  I nternazionale  di  Scienze 
Sociali  e Discipline  Ausiliarie,  1913,  pp.  44-63,  1 74-194,  and  1914,  pp.  195-206, 
333_357>  extracts  from  a study  by  G.  Costa,  Rivista  di  Emigrazione,  August  8, 
1911,  pp.  377-381;  F.  G.  Krause,  “ L’immigrazione  operaia  italiana  nella  citta 


l6o  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

In  estimating  the  role  of  all  these  workpeople  it  would  be  pre- 
posterous to  assert,  as  the  Italian  Commissioner- General  of 
Emigration  once  did,  that  “ they  have  become  essential  for  large 
enterprises,  the  construction  of  canals  and  railways,  building 
operations,  and  the  exploitation  of  the  coal  and  iron  mines.”  1 
Nor  can  we  follow  Pertile  when  he  says,  extravagantly  (in  a gen- 
erally valuable  study),  that  “ the  iron  mines,  and  the  iron  and 
steel  mills,  especially  of  Lorraine,  would  remain  largely  inactive 
if  stripped  of  Italian  aid.”  2 That  much  less  labor  would  at  one 
point  or  another  be  performed  if  the  Italians  stayed  away,  we  can, 
however,  maintain  with  assurance.  With  her  astonishing  powers 
of  absorption,  Germany  in  recent  years  has  harbored  five  or  six 
times  as  many  immigrants  from  various  countries  as  from  Italy 
alone,  and  more  than  any  other  country  of  Europe.  Either  by 
grade  of  occupation  or  by  destination  in  Germany  most  of  these 
have  been  marked  off  from  the  Italians.  The  Russians  and  Poles, 
for  instance,  have  remained  in  the  East;  the  Austrians,  absent  in 
Lorraine,  have  been  more  specialized  in  their  Westphalian  tasks 
than  the  Italians.  It  is  enough  indeed  to  claim  that  Germany  has 
found  it  advantageous  to  hire  thousands  upon  thousands  of 
Italians  for  the  rougher  physical  tasks,  and  that  in  some  districts, 
she  has  been  glad  to  leave  to  them  — mainly  or  largely  — certain 
strata  of  employment  in  leading  industries.  Undoubtedly  the 
landed  interests  have  been  grateful  for  their  coming,  since  the 
German  agricultural  population  has  been  the  less  likely  to  drift 
away  to  the  cities. 

Few  alien  immigrants  into  Germany,  of  whatever  nationality, 
have  performed  a service  demanding  skill  or  responsibility.  It 
has  been  precisely  the  unexampled  system  of  continuation  and 
technical  schools  which  has  provided  these  qualities  and  left 

di  Lipsia,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1905,  No.  8,  pp.  44  f.;  idem,  “ L’immigrazione  italiana 
nella  Sassonia  e nella  Turingia,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1902,  No.  10,  pp.  15,  18;  reports  by 
Krause,  Lehmert,  Preuss,  Molinari,  and  others  in  Emig.  e Col.,  1905,  i'*',  pp.  26-48; 
Landversicherungsrat  Hansen,  “ Deutsche  und  fremde  Arbeitskrafte  am  Erweiter- 
ungsbau  des  Kaiser-Wilhelm-Kanals,”  Soziale  Praxis,  May  25,  1911,  pp.  1057- 
1060;  reports  on  Berlin  consular  district  by  E.  Beccaria  Incisa  in  Emig.  e Col.,  1893, 
pp.  255-259  and  G.  Rossi,  pp.  261-267,  and  on  Kiel  by  R.  Lehmert,  p.  276. 

1 Boll.  Emig.,  1910,  No.  18,  p.  235. 

2 “ Gli  italiani  in  Germania,”  Pt.  iv,  p.  113. 


GERMANY 


161 


relatively  unclaimed  by  Germans  that  whole  category  of  hard 
manual  tasks  which  modern  industry  has  never  dispensed  with. 
Of  these  the  Italians  have  assumed  a large  share.1  For  construc- 
tion work  in  the  open  country,  for  temporary  work  in  large  enter- 
prises for  which  resident  labor  has  been  insufficient,  they  have 
been  gladly  welcomed.  Unstable  they  have  doubtless  been,  as  a 
common  charge  holds,  but  that  is  partly  because  migrants  can 
afford  to  be  mobile;  the  seasonal  turn  has  been  only  the  largest 
aspect  of  their  mobility.  Their  sobriety  and  endurance  have  been 
commended,  while  their  pace  has  frequently  been  called  monoto- 
nous and  slow,  requiring  supervision;  the  pace  in  fact  of  the  more 
southerly  Italians  has  often  been  slow  to  the  point  of  uselessness, 
but  apparently  has  improved  after  a year  or  two.2  The  frequent 
charge  that  they  are  capricious  and  lightly  throw  up  their  jobs 
has  not  been  without  basis.  Managers  have  discovered  that  they 
can  best  avoid  clashes  by  acquiescing  in  the  Italians’  manifest 
desire  to  work  with  others  of  their  own  home  region ; and  where- 
ever  small  colonies  have  tended  to  take  root,  the  same  desire  has 
had  its  way.  Yet  all  these  things,  though  they  have  limited  the 
productiveness  of  the  Italians  or  created  problems  in  the  utiliza- 
tion of  them,  have  not  prevented  a substantial  and  tangible 
economic  gain  to  Germany. 

Nor  has  any  other  than  an  economic  gain  been  contemplated. 
They  have  not  become  German  citizens.  If  here  and  there  a 
miner  or  a trader  has  been  naturalized,  the  case  is  exceptional. 
And  they  have  rarely  intermarried  with  the  Germans.  It  has 
been  objected  that  they  are  conspicuously  dirty,  live  primitively, 
and  resort  readily  to  revolver  and  stiletto.  They  may  not  come 
before  the  courts  oftener  than  the  Germans  do,  but  they  are 
unpleasantly  characteristic  in  their  crimes.3 

1 While  the  industrial  census  found  the  Italians  employed  in  manufacturing, 
mining,  and  building  to  be  1.4  per  cent  of  all  such  in  Germany,  it  found  them  to  be 
about  6 per  cent  of  all  the  unskilled  or  low-skilled  laborers  in  earth  work  and  in  con- 
struction, about  one-half  of  all  the  numerous  foreigners  in  those  branches.  On  the 
other  hand,  few  Italians  were  in  categories  requiring  long  apprenticeship.  For  de- 
tails see  Statistisches  Jahrbnch,  1912,  pp.  10-16. 

2 Pertile,  Pt.  i,  pp.  37,  98. 

3 Ibid.,  Pt.  i,  pp.  73,  184-201. 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


l62 

The  point  of  view  from  which  Germany  has  regarded  her  immi- 
grants is  illustrated  by  the  system  of  legitimation  cards  ( Legiti - 
mations-Karten)  which  a number  of  states  introduced  some  years 
before  the  war.  In  the  immediate  interest  of  employers  this 
device  established  a sort  of  control  over  immigrants  which  could 
not  be  exercised  over  national  workers.  Its  assumption,  correct 
for  practical  purposes,  was  that  the  immigrant  has  only  a pecu- 
niary interest  in  coming  and  must  accept  his  employers’  terms  or 
stay  away.  In  the  agricultural  East,  immigrants  had  often 
broken  their  contracts  to  work,  and  sought  hire  elsewhere.  The 
employers,  deeming  this  procedure  abusive,  organized  privately 
a Feldarbeiterzentralstelle,  which  Prussia,  late  in  1907,  made  the 
agent  of  a public  policy.  All  agricultural  immigrants  were  tem- 
porarily to  yield  up  their  passports  (written  in  various  languages) 
and  to  receive  cards  in  return  bearing  their  own  and  their  em- 
ployers’ names.  Any  discovered  seeking  work  without  a due  dis- 
charge inscribed  on  their  cards  were  to  be  expelled  from  the 
country.  After  the  system  had  been  in  operation  for  one  year,  it 
was  extended  (December,  1908)  to  cover  all  industry  and  all 
immigrant  workers,  and  its  name  made  simply  Deutsche  Arbeiter- 
zentrale.  Each  nationality  had  a card  of  a special  color,  the 
Italian  being  green.  Gradually  several  states  followed  the  lead 
of  Prussia.  Since  the  southern  states  continued  to  hold  aloof,  it 
remained  possible  for  contract  breakers  to  move  into  them.  Ger- 
man writers,  except  the  labor  press,  appear  to  have  approved  the 
institution,  while  Italian  officials  and  writers  have  vigorously  con- 
demned it.  Italian  workmen,  of  whom  47,700  came  under  it  in 
the  year  1910-n,  have  generally  resented  paying  the  fee  of  two 
marks  for  the  useless  green  card,  but  otherwise  have  not  been 
bothered  by  the  system,  which  was  not,  as  we  have  seen,  directed  , 
primarily  against  them.1 

1 An  able  account  of  the  Zentrale  is  in  C.  Willecke,  Die  landwirtschaftliche  Ar- 
beitsvermittlung  in  Deutschland  (Berlin,  1912),  pp.  92-142.  For  a French  view, 
favorable,  and  a good  analysis,  see  E.  Schmit,  Organisation  des  bureaux  de  place- 
ment municipaux  et  situation  des  ouvriers  agricoles  etrangers  en  Allemagne  (Paris. 
1913),  pp.  351-433.  (France  has  had  a problem  not  unlike  that  of  Germany'.)  Cf. 
Dr.  Blumenthal,  “ Die  deutsche  Arbeiterzentrale,”  in  Der  A rbeitsnachsueis  in 
Deutschland,  December  15,  1913,  pp.  49-53.  A bitter  condemnation,  from  the 


GERMANY 


163 


More  directly  touched  than  any  other  class,  the  laborers  of 
Germany  have  viewed  the  Italians  with  varying  degrees  of  hos- 
tility.1 The  immigrants,  eager  for  gain,  have  professed  no 
solidarity  with  German  labor.  Just  the  fact  that  they  are  com- 
petitors makes  them  acceptable  to  employers.2  Intentionally  or 
not,  they  have  on  occasion  been  strikebreakers,  as  when,  some 
years  ago,  nearly  700  were  shipped  to  Kiel,  and  500  to  East  Prus- 
sia.3 Twice  at  least  they  joined  the  striking  miners  in  the  Ruhr 
district,  but  it  was  not,  it  seems,  from  a sense  of  solidarity,  for 
they  were  content  with  the  terms  of  their  contract  and  during  the 
strike  lived  in  retirement.4  They  have  been  regarded  as  a factor 
in  the  failure  or  weakness  of  the  organization  of  building  trades 
workmen  in  Rhenish  Prussia  and  Westphalia,  and  in  that  of  the 
bricklayers  in  Bavaria,  Baden,  and  Alsace-Lorraine.5  German 
workmen  have  not  liked  their  preference  for  piece  pay. 

Perhaps  in  no  other  country  of  Europe  have  the  labor  unions 
made  so  strong  an  effort  to  interest  the  Italians  in  organization. 
From  1898  till  before  the  war,  the  Generaldirektion  published 
L’Operaio  Italiano,  a propagandist  journal  printed  in  Italian.  In 
some  quarters,  Italian  secretaries  were  installed.  Agents  of  Ger- 
man unions  have  even  gone  into  Italy  in  the  winter  to  win  over 

labor  point  of  view,  is  in  Correspondenzblatt  der  Generalkommission  der  Gewerk- 
schaften  Deutschlands , February  27,  1909,  pp.  138  f.  Cf.  E.  H.  M.,  “ Die  deutsche 
Feldarbeiterzentralstelle,”  Soziale  Praxis,  May  27,  1911,  pp.  1070-1072.  For 
Italian  views,  varying  only  in  the  degree  of  their  denunciation,  see  Gemma,  II 
dirillo  internazionale  del  lavoro,  pp.  195-211;  G.  Mortara,  “Le  nuove  carte  di 
legittimazione  prussiane  per  gli  operai  stranieri,”  Rivista  di  Emigrazione,  April, 
1908,  pp.  1-6;  Pertile,  Pt.  ii,  pp.  67-72;  Jacini,  p.  132. 

1 For  early  references,  see  E.  Beccaria  Incisa,  p.  238,  and  E.  T.  Seifarth,  report  on 
Leipsic,  Emig.  e Col.,  1893,  p.  277. 

2 C.  Conrad,  in  his  excellent  study,  Die  Organisation  des  Arbeitsnackweises  in 
Deutschland  (Leipsic,  1904,  p.  84),  pointed  out  that  the  employers’  labor  exchanges 
had  made  a practice  of  importing  Italians  and  others  in  order  to  have  on  hand  an 
oversupply  of  men. 

3 Lehmert,  p.  29;  Preuss,  p.  31;  Pertile,  Pt.  i,  p.  109.  In  recent  years  instances 
appear  to  be  fewer. 

4 G.  Pertile,  “ Lo  sciopero  dei  minatori  nelle  provincie  del  Reno  e della  West- 
falia,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1905,  No.  8,  pp.  39-42. 

6 W.  Troeltsch  and  P.  Hirschfeld,  Die  deutschen  sozialdemokralischen  Gewerk- 
sckaflen  (Berlin,  1905),  pp.  109,  113;  J.  Goldstein,  Arbeiter  und  Unternehmer  im 
Baugewerbe  Deutschlands  (Zurich  and  Leipsic,  1913),  pp.  46-48. 


164  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

the  Italians  who  regularly  visited  Germany.  Entrance  fees  have 
been  kept  low.  In  the  building  trades,  German  unions  have 
agreed  with  unions  in  Italy  to  give  special  rights  to  Italian  mem- 
bers working  in  Germany.  Despite  these  efforts  it  has  apparently 
been  harder  to  persuade  the  Italian  laborers  to  organize  than  any 
other  foreign  group.1  Why  ? Unskilled  workers  never  organize 
readily  and  display  little  class  sentiment.  The  language  barrier 
is  far  from  negligible.  Italians  have  low  standards  of  living  and 
will  accept  low  wages.  They  wish  to  earn  quickly  and  surely,  not 
stopping  for  strikes,  then  to  return  to  Italy.  They  do  not  favor 
paying  dues  in  one  place  if  they  must  shortly  go  to  another.  Often 
deceived  and  misled,  they  distrust  others’  solicitations.  And 
they  fear  that  any  unwelcome  behavior  on  their  part  will  lead  to 
expulsion  from  the  country.2  Hence  it  seems  rather  surprising 
that,  in  December,  1910,  as  many  as  7000  out  of  more  than  100,- 
000  Italian  workmen  in  Germany  were  members  of  German  or 
Italian  unions.3  But  even  unionization  has  not  brought  equality 
of  working  conditions.  The  leading  organized  group,  the  masons, 
once  much  given  to  strike-breaking,  have  chiefly  been  employed 
in  connection  with  railways,  roads,  bridges,  ports,  dams,  mines, 
factories,  sometimes  farmhouses;  rarely  in  cities,  for  these  the 
German  masons  have  jealously  guarded  as  their  own  field.4 

That  unskilled  Italians  have  worked  for  lower  wages  than  the 
Germans  has  occasionally  been  maintained  by  both  Italian  and 
German  observers.5  The  only  Italians  securing  full  trade-union 
rates  have  been  those  engaged  in  the  building  trades  and  they 
only,  it  is  claimed,  when  they  have  worked  in  company  with  Ger- 
mans.6 As  in  France  it  is  the  coarser  tasks  that  the  Italians  have 

1 A.  W.,  “ Die  Organisierung  der  Italiener  in  Deutschland,”  Correspondenzblatt, 
April  27,  1912,  pp.  249-251;  note  in  Soziale  Praxis,  February  12,  1914,  p.  574; 
Troeltsch  and  Hirschfeld,  p.  70. 

2 Cf.  Jacini,  p.  131;  Pertile,  Gli  italiani  in  Germania,  Pt.  iii,  pp.  101-103; 
Troeltsch  and  Hirschfeld,  pp.  69  f. 

3 See  note  in  Rivista  Coloniale,  February  1-15,  1913,  p.  95. 

4 Pertile,  Pt.  i,  p.  no. 

5 Jacini,  p.  131;  Lehmert,  p.  29.  Utterances  more  or  less  specific  are  frequent 
in  Boll.  Emig.  Cf.  Goldstein,  p.  47;  Hansen,  loc.  cit.;  Soziale  Praxis,  July  27,  1911, 
PP-  1334  f- 

6 Pertile,  Pt.  i,  pp.  112  t. 


GERMANY 


165 

been  given  to  do.  By  virtue  of  this  demarcation  or  the  fact  that 
humbler  employments  have  in  some  places  been  almost  aban- 
doned to  them,  competition  with  the  Germans  has  often  not  been 
obvious.  They  have  then  been  viewed  with  a degree  of  indif- 
ference. Let  a period  of  depression  come,  however,  and  we  are 
told  that  Germans  want  the  Italians’  jobs.  At  such  times  in  the 
past,  the  public  employers  of  Prussia  and  Baden  have  been  com- 
manded to  discharge  their  foreign  workmen,  private  employers 
in  Saxony  have  been  urged  by  the  government  to  do  likewise,  and 
other  states  have  followed  these  examples.1  It  is  the  fear  that 
immigration,  in  insidious  ways,  hurts  the  interests  of  German 
labor,  that  has  made  the  unions  frown  upon  the  Italian  influx. 
They  have  not  believed  that  any  of  the  economic  gain  which 
Italians  bring  to  employers  percolates  down  to  them. 

The  Italians  have  not  asked  cordiality  of  reception.  Toleration 
has  sufficed.  Above  all  anxious  that  their  primary  aim  in  coming 
should  not  be  thwarted,  they  have  incidentally  had  to  accept 
much  that  is  unpalatable. 

Beyond  any  question,  life  for  the  oven  workers  of  Bavaria  has 
been  difficult.  How  often  have  the  accordanti  played  them  false, 
whose  oral  contract  made  in  Italy  offers  a fine  opportunity  for 
deceit  abroad!  The  minority  employed  in  the  larger  works  near 
Munich  are  not  in  question,  but  the  thousands  are,  who  are  scat- 
tered through  the  upland  establishments,  where  labor  laws  are 
harder  to  enforce.  Eleven  hours  of  work,  often  more,  quite  apart 

1 “ Relazione  sui  servizi  dell’  emigrazione  per  il  periodo  Aprile  1908-Aprile  1909,” 
Boll.  Emig.,  1909,  No.  9,  p.  113;  note  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1908,  No.  7,  p.  101;  Schilling, 
p.  72;  Pezzani,  p.  56;  Lambertenghi,  p.  20;  Fertile,  Pt.  i,  pp.  107  f.,  Pt.  iv,  pp.  105- 
11 2.  For  a note  concerning  Prussia,  see  Soziale  Praxis,  August  4,  1910,  p.  1244; 
concerning  Wurttemberg,  Der  Arbeitsnachweis  in  Deutschland,  March  15,  1914, 
p.  166.  See  also  Kaiserliches  Statistisches  Amt,  Beiirdge  zur  Arbeiterstatistik,  No.  6, 
Die  Regelung  des  Arbeitsverhaltnisses  bei  Vergebung  offentlicher  Arbeiten  insbesondere 
in  deutschen  Stadten  (Berlin,  1907),  pp.  145-148.  A sharp  criticism  of  the  Alsatian 
labor  exchanges  for  not  giving  employment  by  preference  to  Germans  is  “ Die 
Verwaltung  der  Elsass-Lothringischen  Arbeitsamter,”  in  Soziale  Praxis,  August  17, 
1911,  pp.  1446  f.  For  the  employers’  case  see  the  reply  to  Hansen  (cf.  supra)  by 
E.  Bernhard  in  Soziale  Praxis,  June  29,  1911,  pp.  1206  f.;  cf.  the  same  journal, 
August  13,  1908,  pp.  1206  f. 


1 66  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

from  rests,  have  been  common;  and  the  rests  have  been  less  fre- 
quent than  with  German  workers.  Women  have  been  utilized, 
like  the  boys,  in  the  drying  and  cleaning  operations,  in  loading  and 
unloading  the  ovens,  lifting  the  sold  bricks  upon  carts,  and  some- 
times even  in  heavier  tasks  and  upon  night  work.  As  to  the  chil- 
dren, “I  asked  several  fathers,”  wrote  Pertile,  “if  they  felt  no 
compunction  in  subjecting  their  sons  to  such  prolonged  and  ex- 
hausting toil.  Always  their  reply  was  the  same,  ‘ We  began  to 
work  at  their  age  — why  should  not  they  begin  ? ’ ” 1 

Boys  have  received  35-60  marks  a month,  besides  board  and 
lodging,  women  less.  The  men  who  fashion  the  bricks  and  man- 
age the  ovens  have  been  paid  100  marks.  Polenta,  a little  cheese, 
and  if  the  contract  has  specified,  a bit  of  meat  on  Sunday,  have 
been  provided.  Lodgings  have  usually  been  an  integral  part  of 
the  working  establishment,  and  often  unsanitary.  The  men  have 
developed  drinking  habits.  In  a good  season,  especially  where 
several  workers  have  belonged  to  one  family,  the  venture  has 
netted  them  some  savings.2 

In  western  Germany,  the  immigrants  have  generally  been 
grown  men,  unmarried  or  with  their  families  in  Italy.  Consider 
the  miners,  who  have  been  the  most  likely  to  take  their  families 
with  them.  The  skilled  men  have  been  paid  seven  marks  or  more 
for  an  eight-hour  shift,  their  subordinates  about  three-quarters  as 
much.  But  the  Italians,  we  have  seen,  are  rarely  skilled.  Some 
workmen  used  to  accomplish  enough  “ double  days  ” of  sixteen 
hours  to  total  thirty-five  work  days  a month.  The  mass,  earning 
little,  contending  against  high  costs  of  living,  have  been  able  to 
lay  by  even  a small  surplus  only  when  their  families  have  re- 
mained in  Italy.  Their  health  has  been  hurt,  as  by  inhaling 

1 Op.  cit.,  Pt.  i,  p.  106. 

2 Sandicchi,  pp.  3-34;  Pertile,  Pt.  i,  pp.  103-109, 131, 137  and  Pt.  ii,  p.  25;  Cab- 
rini,  loc.  cit.;  Mondini,  pp.  68-70;  Pezzani,  pp.  58-60. 

Pertile  (Pt.  i,  p.  13 1)  confirms  for  his  day  the  language  used  by  a Baden  factory 
inspector  1111898:  “ The  places  inhabited  by  these  workers  are  extremely  dirty  and 
wholly  unfit  for  human  habitation.  They  are  huts  put  together  of  planks  or  boards 
under  the  roof  of  the  works.  Tables  and  chairs  are  absent,  daylight  often  hardly 
penetrates,  the  bed  is  a wooden  box  with  a bag  of  straw  and  two  coverlets  inside. 
Since  there  are  no  cupboards,  clothes  and  valuables  are  often  stolen.  Washing 
fixtures  are  wholly  absent.” 


GERMANY 


167 

powdered  rock,  which  is  much  more  deleterious  than  powdered 
coal,  and  oftener  than  the  Germans  they  have  been  the  victims  of 
industrial  accidents.  For  their  injuries,  indemnities  have  been 
paid,  but  there  can  be  no  compensation  for  the  condition  of  ex- 
haustion to  which  eight  or  ten  years  of  underground  toil  have 
ordinarily  brought  them.1  Except  for  strikes,  employment  in  the 
mines  has  been  fairly  steady;  in  the  Ruhr  strike  already  referred 
to,  the  loss  in  wages  to  the  Italians  certainly  equalled  the  possible 
savings  of  many  months.2  The  building-trades  workmen  and 
their  kin  have  received  relatively  high  rates  of  pay,  but  as  every- 
where they  have  suffered  from  great  irregularity  of  employment. 
By  freely  working  overtime,  some  men  have  made  the  ordinary 
wage  of  five  or  six  marks  an  average  wage.  Substantially  the 
same  rate  has  been  received  by  quarry  workers  and  stonecutters, 
working  by  the  piece.  Accidents  and  diseases  of  the  lungs  have 
frequently  been  the  lot  of  these  workmen.3  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  they,  like  the  miners,  appear  to  have  had  a better  diet  than 
was  customary  in  Italy. 

Wages  of  only  three  to  four  marks  a day  have  been  paid  to  the 
mill  hands  of  the  iron  and  steel  centers  and  to  the  general  pick- 
and-shovel  men  everywhere.  As  in  all  industrial  countries,  there 
have  been  half-day  shifts  for  the  mill  hands  and  every  week  or  two 
a double  working  day  of  twenty -four  hours.  The  general  laborers, 
working  out  of  doors,  and  less  desired  than  more  robust  men, 
have  suffered  greatly  through  unemployment,  those  remaining 
over  the  winter  in  Germany  having  to  spend  more  than  their 
savings.  The  mill  hands  have  suffered  from  the  same  cause,  their 
industry  being  subject  to  violent,  if  non-seasonal,  fluctuations. 
All  have  had  to  live  as  cheaply  as  possible,  in  an  era  of  rising 
prices,  in  order  to  save  even  a modicum  of  their  wages. 

Quite  the  most  deplorable  living  conditions  have  been  in  Lor- 
raine, appreciably  worse  than  those  of  Westphalia  and  Rhenish 
Prussia.  Wretched  lodgings,  filthy  in  the  extreme,  six  or  eight 

1 On  accidents,  see  Wirtschaftliche  Entwickelung,  etc.,  p.  57;  Pertile,  Pt.  i,  pp. 
58-73;  Donadio,  p.  436. 

2 See  Boll.  Emig.,  1905,  No.  8,  p.  42. 

3 Pertile,  Pt.  i,  pp.  109-115, 137,  idem,  Boll.  Emig.,  1908,  No.  19,  p.  3;  Donadio, 
P-  435- 


i68 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


men  to  a room,  two  men  to  a small  bed,  have  been  common;  the 
beds  sometimes  used  day  and  night.  The  North  Italians  have 
everywhere  lived  better  than  the  South,  but  it  is  only  when  a 
boarding  house  has  been  run  by  a German  family  that  dirt  and 
overcrowding  have  been  absent.  By  bunking  together  and  eating 
under  the  stewardship  of  the  “ boss  ” who  has  enrolled  them  in 
Italy  the  laborers  have  often  lived  for  two  marks  a day  — half 
their  wage.  In  the  attempt  to  make  life  tolerable  all  have  been 
more  given  to  the  drink  habit  than  in  Italy;  the  reaction,  less  fre- 
quent than  with  Germans  and  French,  coming  generally  on  Sun- 
days and  holidays.  Always  under  the  boarding  system,  so  widely 
prevalent,  moral  standards  tend  to  be  relaxed.  Drinking,  gam- 
bling, and  looseness  in  sex  relations  have  been  by  all  odds  worst  in 
Lorraine  and  little  less  diffused  than  in  French  Lorraine,  across 
the  border,  reputed  to  be  the  center  of  infection.  Only  a more 
rigorous  police  system  and  better  discipline  in  the  works  have 
prevented  the  case  from  being  quite  as  bad.1 

No  close  parallel,  fortunately,  can  be  found  to  the  living  con- 
ditions of  Lorraine.  Yet  the  circumstances  of  the  Italians  else- 
where have  had  no  roseate  hue.  After  deduction  of  their  railway 
fares,  the  general  laborers  have  been  able  to  save  little.  When  an 
entire  family  has  worked  in  the  textiles,  in  North  or  South  Ger- 
many, good  savings  have  resulted.  The  pay  of  women  operatives, 
less  than  two  marks  a day,  has  been  inadequate  to  their  needs.2 

1 Pertile,  Gli  ilaliani,  etc.,  Pt.  i,  pp.  73-75,  97-103,  125-184;  idem,  Boll.  Emig., 

1905,  No.  18,  and  Boll.  Emig.,  1908,  No.  19;  Donadio,  p.  435;  Vinci,  Boll.  Emig., 
1913,  No.  12,  p.  11.  On  the  victims  of  accidents  see  an  article,  “ Auslandische 
Arbeiter  und  Arbeiterwanderungen  in  Deutschland,”  Soziale  Praxis,  November, 

1906,  pp.  177-179- 

Upon  the  housing  situation,  Pertile  wrote  (“  Gli  italiani,”  etc.,  Pt.  i,  p.  129; 
cf.  pp.  13 2-135):  “Especially  in  the  mineral  basin  of  Lorraine,  the  houses  are  with 
rare  exceptions  so  indecent,  filthy,  and  disagreeable  that,  compared  with  those  of 
the  local  population,  they  seem  pigsties.  A pungent  and  nauseating  odor  rises 
from  every  corner  of  the  house.  Oftentimes  next  the  house  if  not  actually  in  it, 
pigs  and  poultry  are  raised.  The  floors  and  walks  are  covered  with  a layer  of  earth 
or  mud.  Even  the  better  grade  of  houses  are  reduced  by  the  Italians  to  veritable 
stables.”  Wherever  in  Germany,  he  held,  Italians  come  together  for  a considerable 
undertaking,  abominable  living  conditions  arise. 

2 Long  hours,  low  wages,  and  special  abuses  have  been  held  to  be  the  lot  of  the 
Italians,  once  nearly  800,  chiefly  women,  in  the  jute  mills  of  Landsberg  an  der 
Warthe.  The  workers  had  been  enrolled  in  Munich  and  Trent.  See  C.  Bartoli, 


GERMANY 


169 

Though  Madchenheime  exist  in  some  places,  many  girls  have 
preferred  to  live  independently  and  often  have  come  to  grief. 
The  street  vendors,  exclusive  survivors  of  the  circumambulant 
types,  have  sometimes  fared  well.  Nowhere  have  large  retail 
shops  been  the  outgrowth  of  small  ones,  but  always  branches  of 
firms  in  Italy. 

For  the  Italians  to  do  well  in  Germany  has  indeed  been  a diffi- 
cult thing.  Rarely  do  we  read  that  any  have  risen  to  comfort,  and 
then  the  condition  follows:  only  after  many  years  of  hard  work 
and  constant  saving.  Those  ignorant  of  German  — and  most 
have  been;  those  especially  who  are  illiterate  — ■ and  so  it  has  been 
with  a great  many;  though  they  sometimes  proceed  with  almost 
instinctive  sureness,  generally  grope  their  way  and  have  to  pay 
for  their  experience  dearly.  The  consulates  know  how  often  the 
result  has  been  tragic.  Stinted  living  — without  a family  in  Ger- 
many — and  periodic  return  to  Italy  are  all  that  have  separated 
the  mass  from  failure.  The  fear  of  being  caught  by  the  winter  is 
so  great  that  many  have  returned  to  Italy  while  employment  was 
still  good,  and  sometimes,  if  reports  be  credible,  the  rate  of  wages 
has  risen  after  their  departure.1  On  the  other  hand,  in  their 
eagerness  to  get  work,  they  have  often  arrived  too  early  in  the 
German  spring,  faring  ill  at  the  outset  of  their  season;  and  both  in 
1901  and  1908,  during  industrial  depression,  they  none  the  less 
appeared  in  large  numbers  — in  the  second  of  these  periods  in 
spite  of  warnings  issued  in  Italy.2 

In  non-material  ways  the  lives  of  the  Italians  in  Germany  have 
not  been  bright.  A difficult  situation  has  arisen  when  large  num- 
bers of  foreign  men  have  given  a community  its  character,  or 
when  unmarried  girls  have  worked  in  the  factories  or  sold  in  the 

“Dolori  e miserie  dell’  emigrazione  italiana  in  Germania,”  Vita  Italiana  all'  Estero, 
April  25,  19x4,  pp.  55-58. 

1 “ Relazione  sui  servizi,”  etc.,  Boll.  Emig.,  1910,  No.  18,  p.  238;  Krause, 
“ L’immigrazione  operaia  italiana,”  p.  45;  note  in  Soziale  Praxis,  November  28, 
1912,  p.  258. 

2 “ Relazione  sui  servizi,”  etc.,  pp.  237  f.;  Pertile,  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1908,  No.  19, 
p.  42  (cf.  idem,  Boll.  Emig.,  1905,  No.  18,  p.  23);  Oppenheim,  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1902, 
No.  10,  p.  4;  Pezzani,  in  Emig.  e Col.,  p.  57.  In  1912,  a warning  in  the  Italian  press 
against  emigration  into  Germany  because  of  building-trades  disputes  there  was 
judged  to  have  been  effective.  Soziale  Praxis,  May  8,  1912,  p.  932. 


170 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


streets.  Most  Italians  have  been  inaccessible  to  the  church.  The 
cathedral  at  Metz  used  to  hold  a Sunday  service  in  their  language, 
but  I have  learned  of  no  similar  instance.  The  stabler  groups 
have  had  their  priests.  In  the  turmoil  of  their  lives,  if  we  may 
believe  the  witnesses,  both  patriotic  and  religious  feelings  have 
declined.1  Undoubtedly  radical  social  propaganda  has  made 
headway.  Since  regional  animosities  have  been  keen,  the  Italians 
have  not  organized  well  in  a large  way  and  even  mutual  aid  socie- 
ties have  been  rare  among  them.  The  latter,  though  of  limited 
utility  in  a country  having  a highly  developed  system  of  social 
insurance,  have  in  other  countries  done  much  to  maintain  or 
develop  social  ties.  A small-voiced  Italian  press,  seeking  out  the 
labor  interest,  has  existed,  without  exercising  much  influence. 
The  consular  service  and  especially  the  Opera  of  Bonomelh  have 
served  to  guide  the  perplexed  and  rescue  the  failures,  but  have 
not  touched  closely  the  great  mass  of  the  immigrants. 

The  passing  centuries  have  wrought  extraordinary  changes.  In 
ancient  times  the  Italians  came  to  Germany  as  conquerors.  Their 
engineers  and  architects  spanned  rivers  and  planted  enduring 
cities.  In  the  Middle  Ages,  skilled  artisans  arrived,  teaching  the 
art  of  building;  and  merchants  came  to  trade.  Latterly  the  immi- 
grants have  come  but  to  beg  their  bread,  willing  to  toil  in  the 
nethermost  positions  of  German  industry,  not  hoping,  for  they 
have  not  dared,  that  comfort  and  ease  would  be  the  reward  of 
toil. 

1 Jacini,  p.  134.  Cf.  Pertile,  “ Gli  italiani,”  etc.,  Pt.  i,  pp.  144  f. 


CHAPTER  X 


SWITZERLAND 

As  happens  commonly  in  mountainous  countries,  the  population 
of  Switzerland  has  grown  but  slowly  — in  fifty  years  by  less  than 
one-half.  In  its  composition,  however,  momentous  changes  have 
taken  place ; for  while  Swiss  families  have  betaken  themselves  by 
thousands  to  North  and  South  America,  foreign  immigrants,  in 
still  greater  measure,  have  established  themselves  in  the  country. 
The  foreign  fraction  of  the  population  has  indeed  quadrupled  in 
half  a century.  That  French,  Germans,  and  Italians  should 
freely  enter  a land  where  their  own  languages  are  all  customarily 
spoken  is  not  to  be  marvelled  at.  Whereas,  however,  natives  of 
France  have  rarely  settled  elsewhere  than  in  French  Switzerland, 
and  Germans  mainly  in  the  German  cantons,  the  great  mass  of 
Italians  have  planted  themselves  not  in  the  Italian  but  in  the 
German  and  French  parts.  Such  defiance  of  language  is  a char- 
acteristic trait  of  Italian  emigration,  and  it  makes  the  movement 
into  Switzerland  one  in  kind  with  the  great  main  currents. 

Before  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  few  but  travellers 
and  refugees  came.  In  the  winter  of  i860  some  9000  Italian  resi- 
dents were  enumerated,  in  1870  twice  as  many,  and  the  great 
summer  immigration  had  scarcely  begun.  Into  Ticino  a stream 
of  such  amplitude  soon  poured  that  today  nearly  half  the  popula- 
tion there  may  be  said  to  have  originated  in  Italy  or  been  born  of 
Italian  parents  within  the  past  half  century.  About  1870,  the 
great  era  of  railway  building  was  inaugurated,  and  the  Italian 
began  to  gravitate  toward  his  own.  When  the  St.  Gothard  tun- 
nel was  started,  in  1872,  Italian  laborers  undertook  the  work  of 
construction  and,  nine  years  later,  saw  it  completed.  In  1880, 
there  was  a winter  population  of  41,500.  In  the  next  decade,  the 
Italians  hardly  increased  at  all,  for  it  was  a slack  time  in  railway 
work.  Again,  however,  in  the  years  1890-1900,  amid  revival  of 


171 


172 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


construction  work,  they  resumed  their  coming,  and  in  the  last 
winter  of  the  century  95,000  were  present.  In  workshops  and 
mines  they  had  increased  faster  than  any  other  people.  Their 
activities  in  general  had  immensely  broadened,  and  a rapidly 
increasing  factory  population  had  gained  a foothold.  It  was  soon 
apparent  that  there  had  come  to  be  a rival  to  the  attractions  of 
Germany.  Growing  industrialization  and  an  ever-swelling 
tourist  business,  demanding  the  construction  of  factories,  power 
works,  railway  lines,  and  hotels,  had  made  of  Switzerland  one  of 
the  great  labor  markets  of  Europe. 

The  half  million  and  more  foreigners  discovered  by  the  census 
of  1910  were  nearly  15  per  cent  of  the  population;  in  some  cantons 
they  were  30  or  40  per  cent.1  So,  for  this  mountainous  Old-World 
land,  immigration  has  had  the  same  proportional  importance  as 
for  the  United  States.  In  the  previous  decade,  in  fact,  foreign 
settlers  and  births  in  the  foreign  stock  had  increased  the  popula- 
tion more  than  half  as  much  as  it  was  increased  by  Swiss  stock. 
The  Germans  and  the  Italians  together  comprised  in  1910  four- 
fifths  of  the  foreigners  and  were  about  equally  represented,  num- 
bering more  than  200,000  each.  Italian  citizens  alone  were 
about  6 per  cent  of  the  entire  population  (the  hirondelles  who 
come  for  the  summer  are  of  course  not  included  in  these  December 
statistics).  In  Geneva  they  were  over  21,000,  exceeded  only  by 
the  French;  throughout  the  German  cantons  they  were  numer- 
ous; and  nearly  all  the  foreigners  of  Ticino  were  Italian  citizens, 
that  is,  about  a quarter  of  the  canton’s  population  — in  some 
communes,  a majority.  In  no  other  country  of  Europe  is  Italian 
immigrant  stock  so  large  a factor. 

The  availability  of  routes  of  travel  has  always  governed  this 
immigration.  Ticino  lies  at  the  very  gates  of  Italy.  The  Grisons, 
much  higher,  have  been  reached  by  way  of  Chiavenna  and  the 
Spliigen.  Until  1906,  when  the  tunnel  was  completed,  Napo- 
leon’s road  over  the  Simplon  Pass,  made  in  the  first  years  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  was  the  natural  highway  into  the  Vallais, 
and  indeed  into  the  farther  cantons  of  Geneva,  Vaud,  Fribourg, 

1 Resultats  statistiques  du  recensement  federal  de  la  population  du  1"  deceinbre 
1910,  Berne,  1915.  I have  at  various  points  drawn  upon  this  census. 


SWITZERLAND 


1 73 


and  Neuchatel.  Since  then,  every  year,  thousands  upon  thou- 
sands of  Italians  have  passed  through  the  little  frontier  town  of 
Domodossola,  lending  it  a new  importance,  making  it  veritably 
“ the  western  Chiasso.”  And  what  is  the  eastern  Chiasso  ? It 
is  the  town  through  which  pass,  on  their  way  to  Bellinzona  and 
the  St.  Gothard — presently  to  Zurich  and  Basel — not  only  the 
great  majority  of  Italian  immigrants  destined  for  Switzerland, 
but  the  mass  also  of  those  bound  for  western  Germany. 

It  is  no  inconsiderable  part  which  the  Italians  have  played  in 
Swiss  agriculture.  Ten  thousand  were  recorded  in  1905,  more 
than  1 per  cent  of  all  the  workers  in  this  leading  industry  of  the 
country.1  Four  thousand  were  farm  laborers,  mainly  harvest 
hands,  who  worked  in  the  southern  and  in  the  western  German 
cantons;  later  on  in  the  season  more  would  have  been  revealed. 
But  the  census  found  also  a host  of  temporary  immigrant  farm 
laborers  whose  nationality  it  did  not  determine,  most  numerous  in 
the  cantons  where  the  Italians  chiefly  went.  The  Lombard  hay- 
mowers  of  Ticino  have  long  been  an  important  class  among  the 
immigrants  into  Switzerland.  Six  thousand  Italians  were  ten- 
ants or  owners  of  land,  whose  farms,  however,  were  rarely  larger 
than  from  one  to  seven  acres.  In  the  Grisons  and  Ticino,  the 
Italian  immigrants  were,  respectively,  n and  8.6  per  cent  of  the 
agricultural  population.  The  similarity  of  farming  methods  to 
those  used  in  Italy  and  the  accessibility  of  these  regions  make  it 
easy  to  explain  the  immigration.2 

Almost  all  the  foreigners  employed  in  forestry  were  Italians, 
nearly  5 per  cent  of  the  entire  working  force.  More  than  half 

1 Many  data  in  this  chapter  have  been  taken  from  Schweizerische  Slatistik, 
Ergebnisse  der  eidgenossigen  Betriebszahlung  vom  9 August,  1905,  4 vols.,  Berne, 
1910-12.  I have  also,  for  comparisons,  drawn  upon  vol.  iii  of  the  general  census 
of  December  1,  1900,  Berne,  1907. 

2 See  esp.  Betriebszahlung,  ii,  and  its  supplement.  Cf.  G.  de  Michelis,  “ L’emi- 
grazione  italiana  nella  Svizzera,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1903,  No.  12,  p.  13;  L.  Silvestrelli, 
“ L’emigrazione  e le  colonie  italiane  in  Svizzera,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1903,  No.  11,  pp. 
14  f.  By  1910,  many  of  the  “ Swiss  ” agriculturists  of  Ticino  were  really  descend- 
ants of  Italian  immigrants.  Writing  in  1893,  A-  Marazzi  (report  on  Bellinzona 
consular  district,  Emig.  e Col.,  1893,  p.  494)  claimed  that  the  Italians,  taking  the 
places  of  the  emigrated  Swiss,  had  quite  saved  the  agriculture  of  Ticino.  As  in 
the  Trentino,  the  two  movements  had  run  parallel  for  decades.  One  can  almost 


174 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


were  in  the  Grisons,  the  rest  chiefly  in  St.  Gall,  Vaud,  and  Neu- 
chatel.  The  more  important  industry  of  mining  drew  upon  them 
even  more  strongly,  the  6000  and  more  employed  constituting 
nearly  half  of  all  the  workers,  Swiss  or  foreign.  They  were  oc- 
cupied chiefly  in  the  granite  quarries,  which  exist  in  nearly  all  the 
cantons.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  development  of  the 
Ticinese  quarries,  begun  when  the  St.  Gothard  railway  was  con- 
structed, and  carried  forward  with  special  rapidity  after  1890. 
was  accomplished  almost  entirely  with  immigrant  labor  — the 
labor  first  of  North  Italians  and  later  also  of  men  who  came  from 
as  far  south  as  Tuscany.  Their  number  has  fluctuated  much  with 
day  and  season,  being  always  highest  in  spring  and  autumn. 
Hydraulic  extraction  of  lime  and  cement  materials,  the  quarrying 
of  gravel,  sand,  sandstone,  marble,  and  slate  have  also  occupied 
many  Italians.1 

It  is,  however,  in  the  work  of  construction  and  manufacturing, 
which  occupies  nearly  as  many  people  as  agriculture  in  Switzer- 
land, that  the  Italians  have  had  their  chief  place.  While  citizens 
of  the  federation  were  only  three-quarters  of  all  engaged,  citizens 
of  Italy  were  nearly  14  per  cent.  It  is  an  extraordinary  situation. 
In  the  economic  development  of  modern  Switzerland,  more  and 
more  during  the  last  thirty  or  forty  years,  these  immigrants  have 
played  a remarkable  role.  In  construction  work  alone,  their  prime 
field,  they  had,  when  the  industrial  census  was  taken,  a contingent 
of  65,000  in  a total  of  85,000  foreigners,  and  were  actually  one- 
third  of  all  the  workers  employed,  of  whatever  nationality,  in- 
cluding the  Swiss.  In  manufacturing,  there  were  20.000  more. 
In  the  two  industries  together,  Italian  wage  earners  numbered 
77,500.  The  44,000  of  these  employed  in  railway  work,  on  roads 
and  bridges  and  on  elevated  and  underground  structures,  were 
certainly  a great  majority  of  all  engaged  in  such  work  in  the 
country. 

hold,  says  Marazzi,  that  “ the  Italian  citizens  immigrate  into  the  canton  because 
the  Ticinese  emigrate,  and  that  the  Ticinese  citizens  emigrate  because  the  Italians 
immigrate.” 

1 Betriebszahlung,  ii,  pp.  487-537;  Marazzi,  op.  cit.  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1903,  No.  ir, 
pp.  26-28;  G.  Barni  and  G.  Canevascini,  L’industria  del  granito  e lo  sviluppo  econo- 
mico  del  canton  Ticino,  Lugano,  1913  — a particularly  careful  study. 


SWITZERLAND 


1 75 


If  one  could  bring  together  today  a list  of  the  larger  enterprises 
upon  which  these  workpeople  have  been  employed,  often  almost 
to  the  exclusion  of  others,  the  result  would  be  impressive.  Too 
meager  the  record!  No  diplomatic  representative  or  agent  of  the 
Emigration  Service  writes  of  his  countrymen  without  general 
reference  to  their  labor;  but  only  sporadically,  as  if  reflecting  an 
uncommon  reach  for  the  concrete  and  picturesque,  does  he  men- 
tion specific  undertakings. 

One  of  the  earliest  of  their  achievements  was  the  cutting  of  the 
Mont  Cenis  tunnel,  begun  in  1857  but  not  completed  till  1871, 
after  hand  labor  had  given  place  to  machine  drilling.  The  new 
passageway  was  eight  miles  long.  I have  alluded  to  the  tunnelling 
of  the  St.  Gothard,  which  remains  after  forty  years  one  of  the 
world’s  great  structures.  On  the  tunnel  itself,  more  than  nine 
miles  long,  and  on  the  railroad  approaches  which  make  a line  one 
hundred  and  fifty  miles  in  length,  thousands  of  Italians  were 
employed.1  The  first  Bergbahn  to  be  built,  that  of  the  Rigi,  was 
the  fruit  of  Italian  toil;  so,  later,  was  that  of  Pilatus.  Near  the 
end  of  the  century  came  the  tunnelling  of  the  Albula  through  three 
and  a half  miles  of  the  granite  of  the  Rhetian  Alps. 

Heralded  by  manifests  in  Sicily,  Calabria,  Romagna,  and  other 
parts  of  Italy  inviting  workers  to  enrol  in  the  enterprise,  work  on 
the  Simplon  tunnel  was  begun  in  1898.  In  the  first  contingent 
were  some  1900  Italians,  including  many  Piedmontese  and  Vene- 
tians. They  and  their  successors,  a labor  force  fluctuating  much 
during  a period  of  seven  years,  cut  away  the  crystalline  rock  over 
a stretch  of  more  than  twelve  miles  and  gave  to  the  world  its 
longest  tunnel.  Toiling  much  of  the  time  more  than  a mile  below 
the  surface,  in  rock  temperatures  reaching  to  130°  F.,  forced  to 
cease  their  work  by  voluminous  streams  of  hot  water  — an 
obstacle  not  present,  for  example,  in  the  St.  Gothard  — oblivious 
to  the  fumes  and  roar  of  the  dynamite,  these  men  wrought 
wonders  of  industry  and  endurance.2 

1 Silvestrelli,  p.  16. 

2 F.  Gavotti,  “ II  canton  Vallese  e la  colonia  italiana,”  Emig.  e Col.,  1903,  ii, 
p.  77;  de  Michelis,  op.  cit.  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1903,  No.  12,  pp.  71  f.;  idem,  “ Gli  operai 
italiani  al  Sempione,”  Giornale  degli  Economisti,  February,  1899,  pp.  138-154;  E. 
Sella,  L’emigrazione  italiana  nella  Svizzera,  Turin,  1899,  pp.  40  f. 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


176 

About  the  time  this  tunnel  was  completed,  work  began  on  the 
Loetschberg  railway;  a route  of  immense  importance  for  Swiss 
internal  commerce,  and,  in  continuation  of  the  Simplon  passage, 
replacing  the  St.  Gothard  route  for  Italian-French  intercourse. 
It  was  to  have,  when  finished,  nearly  ten  miles  of  tunnel  and  more 
than  twenty-five  of  approaches.  At  the  end  of  four  years,  there 
were  still  more  than  3000  Italians  at  work  upon  it,  including  men 
who  had  drudged  in  the  Simplon,  and  even,  it  is  said,  some  vet- 
erans of  the  St.  Gothard.  In  the  most  active  period  there  must 
have  been  6000  or  7000  Italians  engaged.  At  one  time  a troop 
of  250  Macedonian  Turks  was  substituted  for  Italians,  but  the 
experiment  failed.  In  February,  1912,  the  tunnelling  of  the 
Jungfraujoch,  more  than  10,000  feet  above  the  sea,  was  finished. 
Not  till  the  next  year  was  the  Loetschberg  railway  completed.1 

In  1914  the  first  track  was  constructed  of  the  Brieg-Furka- 
Disentis  line,  an  extraordinary  series  of  bridges,  tunnels,  and  em- 
bankments connecting  the  Simplon  and  the  St.  Gothard  routes 
and  the  Grisons  railway  net,  running  over  sixty  miles  from  the 
upper  valley  of  the  Rhone,  past  Andermatt,  to  the  upper  valley 
of  the  Rhine.  Nearly  all  the  workers,  it  is  said,  were  Italian, 
sometimes  more  than  3000;  in  the  winter  they  contended  with 
several  feet  of  snow  and  with  intense  cold  which  was  little  less  in 
the  tunnels.2 

1 G.  de  Michelis,  “ Regio  Ufficio  della  Emigrazione  Italiana  nella  Svizzera,  Re- 
lazione,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1908,  No.  10,  p.  62;  “ Relazione  sui  servizi  . . . 1908-09,” 
Boll.  Emig.,  1909,  No.  9,  p.  no;  “ Relazione  sui  servizi  . . . 1909-10,”  Boll.  Emig., 
1910,  No.  18,  pp.  229,  232;  E.  Mancini,  “ Dal  Loetschberg  alia  Jungfrau,”  Nuova 
Antologia,  November  16,  1913,  p.  280;  note  in  Rivisia  Coloniale , March  25,  1912, 
p.  220. 

2 A.  Carneluti,  “ La  mano  d’opera  italiana  alia  costruzione  della  ferrovia  di 
montagna  Briga-Furka-Disentis,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1904,  No.  9,  pp.  51-56. 

Other  instances  deserve  to  be  recorded.  Many  Italians,  largely  from  the  South, 
helped  build  the  Thusis-St.  Moritz  railway,  about  the  beginning  of  the  present  cen- 
tury (note  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1902,  No.  6,  p.  65;  A.  Marazzi,  “ L’immigrazione  italiana 
nella  Svizzera  Tedesca,”  Emig.  e Col.,  1903,  ii,  p.  92).  In  the  canton  of  Berne  others 
worked  on  the  Zweisimmen-Saanen-Bulle  railway  (note  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1903,  No.  6, 
p.  iix).  The  Department  of  Public  Works  of  Ticino  told  the  Italian  consul-general 
that  90  per  cent  of  the  men  employed  on  cantonal  and  communal  public  works  were 
Italian  citizens  (F.  Lucchesi-Palli,  “ II  canton  Ticino  e la  immigrazione  italiana,” 
Emig.  e Col.,  1903,  ii,  p.  44).  Many  were  working  on  the  Martigny-Chatelard  rail- 


SWITZERLAND 


1 77 


Upon  such  undertakings  as  these  and  upon  general  housebuild- 
ing, a multitude  of  Italian  masons  have  worked.  In  1905  more 
than  5500  were  counted.  “ Their  good  work,”  the  census  went  out 
of  its  way  to  remark,  “is  known  and  appreciated  everywhere. 
Upon  several  occasions  attempts  have  been  made  in  Switzerland  to 
establish  schools  for  the  training  of  skilled  masons,  but  they  have 
failed,  unfortunately,  and,  far  from  taking  the  place  of  the  Italian 
mason,  the  Swiss  workman  is  content  to  serve  him  as  a hod- 
carrier.”  1 Italian  hodmen,  be  it  said  in  passing,  have,  however, 
also  been  innumerable.  In  no  other  country  have  masons  secured 
so  early  and  so  firm  a foothold.  Prolific  Lombardy,  Venetia,  and 
Piedmont  provide,  we  have  seen,  an  extraordinary  instance  of 
specialization  of  skill  for  an  international  labor  market.  Here 
they  have  built  a substantial  railway  station,  there  a hotel,  houses 
everywhere,  and  they  have  been  busy  in  every  period  of  building 
prosperity.  A strike  by  Italian  hodcarriers,  promptly  followed  by 

way  in  the  Vallais  (Gavotti,  p.  71).  At  Kaltbrunn,  in  1903,  nearly  1000  men  were 
engaged  in  tunnelling  a portion  of  the  Weissenstein  on  the  Solette-Montier  railroad; 
the  five  or  six  miles  stretch  was  completed  in  1907  (Schiaparelli,  “ L’opera  di  assis- 
tenza  degli  operai  italiani  emigrati  in  Europa  e nel  Levante,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1904, 
No.  2,  p.  47;  de  Michelis,  op.  cit.  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1908,  No.  10,  p.  75).  In  1906, 
2000  gathered  at  Chippo  and  Sierre  in  Vallais  for  the  hydraulic  and  construction 
work  necessary  for  an  aluminum  establishment  (de  Michelis,  “ Le  istituzioni  italiani 
nella  Svizzera  per  l’assistenza  degli  emigranti,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1908,  No.  22,  p.  35). 
In  1909  they  were  working  on  a short  railroad  running  from  Martigny  to  Orsieres, 
on  another  connecting  Spiez  and  Brieg,  and  were  completing  the  Bodensee-Toggen- 
burg  road  uniting,  through  the  cantons  of  St.  Gall  and  Appenzell,  lakes  Zurich  and 
Constance,  — when  at  its  height,  in  1908,  the  last-named  task  employed  about 
4000  Italians;  1000  were  building  the  Bernina  road;  others  were  altering  the  chan- 
nel of  the  Rhine  at  Diepoldsau,  a task  reckoned  to  last  eight  years;  at  Drause  a 
canal  was  being  constructed;  in  at  least  eight  places  large  hydro-electric  plants  were 
building:  these  are  not  half  the  instances  which  the  Italian  emigration  commissioner 
happened  to  record  at  one  time,  many  of  them  promising  work  for  several  years 
(report,  Boll.  Emig.,  1910,  No.  18,  pp.  232-235;  see  also  E.  Pasteris,  “Una  mis- 
sione  sul  Reno,”  Rivista  Internazionale  di  Scienze  Sociali  e Discipline  Ausiliarie, 
July-August,  1912,  pp.  303  f.).  Still  others  were  engaged  in  a four  years’  task  of 
tunnelling  the  Grenchenberg  for  a distance  of  five  miles,  and  were  constructing  the 
Monteau-Longeau  road  in  continuance  of  the  Loetschberg  line  (F.  Calimani, 
“ Condizione  degli  operai  italiani  a Granges,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1913,  No.  5,  p.  126). 
On  the  construction  of  the  Swiss  railways,  see  F.  Tajani,  I valichi  alpini,  2d  ed., 
Milan,  1914;  P.  Weissenbach,  Das  Eisenbahnwesen  der  Schweiz,  2 vols.,  Zurich, 
1913-14.  Cf.  P.  Clerget,  La  Suisse  au  XXe  siecle  (Paris,  1908),  ch.  vi. 

1 Betriebszahlung,  iii,  p.  96.* 


178 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


a strike  of  bricklayers,  made  1907  “ a bad  year  ” for  building  in 
Basel,  many  tasks  remaining  unfinished.1 

There  have  been  many  painters  and  plasterers,  carpenters  and 
plumbers.  Of  plasterers  and  stucco  workers  the  1905  census 
counted  1500;  of  cabinet  makers  an  equal  number;  of  plumbers, 
locksmiths,  stonecutters,  electric  fitters,  600  each.  The  higher 
grades  of  stone  sculptor  have  appeared,  coming  from  Tuscany. 
Here  also  mention  should  be  made  of  2500  Italians  employed  in 
the  making  of  brick  and  tiles  and  1400  in  preparing  various  ce- 
ment products.  Later  figures  than  these  would  doubtless  reveal 
even  more.2 

In  factory  employments,  the  Italians,  among  foreigners,  have 
stood  second  to  the  Germans.  After  1895  their  increase  was 
particularly  rapid,  continuing  certainly  for  ten  or  fifteen  years, 
and  probably  till  before  the  war.  The  industrial  census  counted 
2000  in  the  silk  industry,  1800  in  the  machine-made  embroider}' 
trade,  1700  in  the  cotton  mills,  900  in  shoe  factories,3  nearly  as 
many  in  the  woolen  mills,  and  600  in  the  chocolate  factories.4 
Others  were  in  the  tobacco,  straw  goods,  and  watch  factories.  In 
the  making  of  clothing  and  toilet  articles,  the  4700  Italians  were 
nearly  5 per  cent  of  all  so  employed  in  Switzerland.  For  these 
many  employments  Lugano,  Geneva,  Basel,  Zurich,  and  St.  Gall 
have  been  the  great  centers.  In  the  canton  of  St.  Gall,  in  1909  — 

1 Mitteilungen  des  statistischen  Amtes  des  Kantons  Basel-Stadt,  No.  12;  Die 
im  Jahre  iqoj  im  Kanton  Basel-Stadt  erstellten  Neubauten  (Basel,  1908),  p.  5. 

2 The  great  increase  of  the  Italians  in  building  appears  to  have  begun  around  the 
end  of  the  last  century.  See  Sella,  p.  35,  on  the  relation  of  Italian  to  other  workers. 
It  is  certain  that  the  Italians  had  been  becoming  numerous  for  many  years  previous. 
Speaking  for  the  Zurich  district,  F.  I.ambertenghi  in  Emig.  e Col.,  1S93,  P-  5°6> 
declared  that  in  railroad  work  and  masonry  the  Italians  had  relatively  few  com- 
petitors. 

3 Doubtless  many  of  the  Italian  shoemakers  of  the  cities  are  not  included  in  this 
figure.  Sella,  years  ago,  wrote  {op.  cit.,  pp.  29  f.),  probably  with  exaggeration, 
that  in  Geneva  nearly  all  the  shoemakers  were  Italian.  Some  had  shops  of  then- 
own;  most  worked  for  a proprietor.  They  did  all  grades  of  work.  The  employees 
in  the  two  major  factories  turning  out  a machine  product  were  nearly  all  Italian. 

4 On  one  occasion  at  least,  the  Cailler  company  brought  200  Italian  girls  to 
Fribourg,  enrolled  by  an  agent  at  Pavullo,  with  the  approval  of  Italian  officials. 
See  G.  Basso,  “ I cantoni  francesi  della  Svizzera  e le  loro  colonie  italiane,”  Emig. 
e Col.,  1903,  ii,  p.  55. 


SWITZERLAND 


179 


at  St.  Gall,  Rorschach,  Alifoltern,  and  other  places  — - were  several 
thousand  girls  without  whose  aid  some  factories  would  have  been 
in  difficult  straits.  At  Birsfelden,  near  Basel,  many  girls  have 
worked  in  a Lumpfabrik  (“  la  lompa!  ”)  sorting  rags;  it  is  an 
occupation  in  which  employment  has  invariably  been  good.1  In 
all  these  occupations,  women  and  girls  have  tended  to  predomi- 
nate. The  manufacture  of  foods  and  beverages  claimed  3200  Ital- 
ians, 5 per  cent  of  all  workers;  the  paper,  leather,  and  rubber 
manufacture,  nearly  500,  or  6 per  cent;  metal  and  machine  works 
3800;  printing,  over  500. 

Italian  trade  in  Switzerland  has  had  a long  history.  Its  modern 
beginnings  are  to  be  found  in  the  itinerant  vendors  who  followed 
the  Alpine  passes.  When  the  construction  workmen  came,  retail 
dealers  settled  about  them;  so  it  was  in  the  St.  Gothard,  the 
Simplon,  and  many  other  regions.  Often  their  settlements  became 
permanent.  Of  the  12,000  Italians  counted  in  1905  more  than  a 
quarter  were  in  Ticino,  and  more  than  a sixth  in  the  Grisons. 
Geneva  and  Vaud  had  each  1100,  7 per  cent  and  5 per  cent  respec- 
tively of  all  there.  Engaged  in  the  work  of  hotels,  pensions,  inns, 
and  the  like  were  6700,  nearly  7 per  cent  of  all  such  workpeople  in 
Switzerland.  In  food  and  drink  shops  there  were  2500.  Ranking 
only  after  the  Swiss  and  Germans,  the  Italians  have  been  over 
5 per  cent  of  the  entire  trading  population. 

These  are  the  principal  groups.  To  complete  the  outlines  of  the 
picture,  it  is  only  necessary  to  add  the  employees  of  the  transpor- 
tation companies  (not  in  construction  work)  who  were  3500  in 
1905;  and  those  engaged  in  the  liberal  professions,  numbering 
over  1600  — relatively  more  numerous  than  in  any  other  coun- 
try visited  by  the  Italians,  the  devotees  of  art  being  actually  one- 
seventh  of  all  of  their  kind.  Nowhere  else,  in  truth,  has  Italian 
immigration  been  so  diversified,  nowhere  else  has  so  large  a factor 
of  skill  appeared.  The  result  may  be  striking,  but  it  is  not  strange 
when  the  nearness  of  the  opportunities  of  Switzerland  to  the 
teeming  populations  of  North  Italy  is  considered. 

1 Pasteris,  pp.  303-305;  M.  L.  Danieli  Camozzi,  “ L’emigrazione  italiana  fem- 
minile  in  Germania  e in  Svizzera,”  Rivisla  di  Emigrazione,  May,  1909,  p.  56;  Ber- 
nardy,  “ Alcuni  aspetti  . . . Basilea”  ( cit .),  pp.  10-16. 


i8o 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


Undeniably  a tremendous  amount  of  work  has  been  performed 
by  the  Italians.  Without  them  the  economic  advance  of  the 
country  would  have  been  much  less.  Is  it  not  astonishing  that  a 
European  nation  should  in  the  twentieth  century  have  come  to 
depend  at  so  many  points  upon  its  immigrants?1  It  is  not  as 
heads  of  establishments,  officials,  technical  employees,  and  the  like 
that  the  mass  of  the  Italians  have  worked.  In  industry  some 
years  ago  they  were  about  4 per  cent  of  such  persons,  whereas  of 
the  wage  earners,  skilled  and  unskilled,  they  were  19  per  cent.2 
It  is  for  the  Swiss  then  to  decide  what  the  Italians  shall  do,  and  to 
supervise  and  direct  their  effort.  That  is  the  usual  situation. 

Apart  from  its  well  understood  limitations,  the  labor  of  the 
Italians  has  given  satisfaction.  Even  the  unskilled  have  come 
mainly  from  those  parts  of  Italy  in  which  vigor  and  assiduity  are 
best  developed.  In  power  of  accomplishment  the  men  have  com- 
pared well  with  other  immigrants  who  have  been  used;  good 
words  for  the  masons  have  been  especially  frequent.  The  girl 
factory  workers,  though  they  have  sometimes  been  described  as 
capricious  and  dirty,  and  found  unacceptable  in  the  more  respon- 
sible places,  have  at  least  been  quick-fingered.  When  all,  how- 
ever, is  said,  it  is  clear  that  fundamentally  it  is  the  abundance 
and  cheapness  of  Italian  labor  that  have  made  it  an  asset  in 
Switzerland. 

It  is  in  fact  as  homo  oeconomicus  and  not  at  all  as  homo  civicus , 
as  a Swiss  eulogist  of  the  immigration  has  put  it,  that  the  Italian 
is  prized.3  There  is  no  desire  to  assimilate  him.  Public  opinion 
has  not  encouraged  naturalization,  which  takes  place  only  on  a 

1 With  P.  H.  Schmidt  ( Die  schweizerischcn  Industrial  im  inter nationalen  Kon- 
kurrenzkampfc,  Zurich,  191 2),  we  may  say,  “ Swiss  industry  could  not  have  expanded 
so  greatly  as  it  has  in  the  last  ten  years  nor  so  fully  have  utilized  the  special  oppor- 
tunities of  1906  and  1907,  had  the  assistance  of  Italian  immigrant  labor  been  with- 
held ” (p.  98);  but  we  ought  to  use  cautiously  such  words  as  “necessary”  or 
“ indispensable  ” (for  instances  of  which  see  Schmidt,  p.  97,  and  N.  Droz,  former 
president  of  Switzerland,  in  his  introduction  to  Sella’s  book).  When  the  European 
war  shut  off  the  supply  of  Italians,  the  pinch  was  seriously  felt;  see  a note  in  Boll. 
Emig.,  1916,  No.  15,  pp.  55-57. 

2 Betriebszahlung,  iii,  81.* 

3 A.  Picot,  Un  probleme  national,  La  population  etrangere  etablie  en  Suisse  (Geneva 
and  Basel,  1914),  p.  13. 


SWITZERLAND 


181 


small  scale.  Now  and  then  Italians  marry  Swiss  women.1  But 
there  has  never  been  any  considerable  or  general  approach  to 
Swiss  ways.  Though  si  may  become  oui,  stazione,  ‘gara,’  scio- 
pero,  ‘ greva,’  these  interesting  adaptations  of  the  tongue  are 
superficial.  The  immigrant,  wherever  he  goes,  continues  to  eat 
the  imported  food  of  his  own  people,  bought  of  his  fellow  country- 
men. And  in  the  cities  he  goes  into  his  own  well-defined  colonies. 
“ Italian,”  as  one  writer  has  put  it,  not  unsympathetically,  “ he 
remains,  body  and  soul.”  2 

Signs  of  an  unfriendly  or  inhospitable  attitude  are  by  no  means 
wanting.  The  Basel  and  St.  Gall  poor-law  authorities  have  re- 
fused to  aid  Italians.  In  the  country  as  a whole,  a considerable 
burden  of  poverty,  only  rarely  borne  by  Italian  organizations,  is 
set  against  the  gain  from  their  coming.3  Probably  the  people  of 
Vallais  are  typical  enough  when,  as  some  one  has  said,  they  regard 

1 De  Michelis,  op.  cit.  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1903,  No.  12,  pp.  51  f.;  Gavotti,  p.  76; 
Marazzi,  op.  cit.  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1903,  No.  11,  p.  35;  Lucchesi-Palli,  p.  44;  Silve- 
strelli,  p.  16. 

2 Schmidt, p.  98.  Cf.  Sella  (pp.  17-20,  31)  who  writes  (p.  19):  “The  aspect  of 
the  Italian  workman  in  Switzerland  is  unlike  that  of  the  indigenous  workman.  And 
as  he  differs  in  clothing  and  has  a coarser  exterior,  so  he  is  morally  and  intellectually 
coarser,  and  often  incapable,  not  only  of  comprehending  but  even  of  conceiving  the 
existence  of  moral  and  social  sentiments  belonging  to  the  native  workers  among 
whom  he  lives.  . . . This  is  what  makes  the  Italians  abroad  remain  almost  isolated 
from  the  other  workers  and  constitute,  as  it  were,  a people  within  a people.  They 
feel  different  because  they  are  inferior.”  The  more  intelligent,  he  adds,  if  they  stay, 
gradually  come  nearer  to  the  Swiss. 

3 De  Michelis,  op.  cit.  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1903,  No.  12,  p.  89;  Danieli  Camozzi, 
pp.  58  f . ; Dr.  C.  A.  Schmid,  “Das  Armenwesen  in  Oberitalien,”  Zeitschrift  fur 
Schweizerische  Statistik  (Berne,  1907),  i,  pp.  89, 95.  Schmid  holds  the  burden  to  have 
increased  much  in  the  ten  years  before  his  writing.  Its  origins  are  excessive  frugal- 
ity, low  standards  of  hygiene,  an  increasing  habit  of  remaining  over  the  winter,  the 
recommendation  by  protective  organizations  in  Italy  that  emigrants  in  Switzerland 
should  beg  aid  of  Swiss  agencies,  lastly  some  development  of  a pauper  spirit.  Writ- 
ing again, seven  years  later  (Das  geselzliche  Armenwesen  in  der  Schweiz,  Zurich,  1914), 
Schmid  holds  (pp.  28-30,  35)  that  in  1911  the  public  authorities  paid  125,000  francs 
on  account  of  the  sickness  of  Italian  immigrants,  and  the  private  authorities  an 
equal  sum;  and  that  wherever  many  foreign  poor  are  aided,  the  care  of  the  Swiss 
poor  suffers.  A.  Wild,  in  Das  organisierte  freiwillige  Armenwesen  in  der  Schweiz 
(Zurich,  1914),  holds  (pp.  267-269, 276)  that  care  by  Italian  compatriots  has  been  but 
meagerly  developed  and  that,  even  where  organizations  exist,  they  are  often  quite 
inactive.  On  the  existing  laws,  see  J.  Langhard,  Das  Niederlassungsrecht  der  Aus- 
lander  in  der  Schweiz,  Zurich,  1913.  Nearly  half  a century  ago,  the  canton  of  Uri 


182 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


the  Italians  as  “ guests  who  are  necessary  rather  than  welcome.” 1 
The  names  crispi,  macaroni , cinkeli , popularly  applied,  are  not 
marks  of  esteem.  But  the  spirit  of  opposition,  however  varied 
the  forms  it  assumes,  has  rarely  led  to  clashes.2 

The  labor  interests  have  protested  against  the  Italians,  but  less 
vigorously  than  in  other  countries.  There  are,  to  be  sure,  the 
familiar  charges  that  the  immigrants  work  for  lower  wages  and 
displace  native  labor.  Swiss  women  have  been  unwilling  to  work 
side  by  side  with  Italian  women,  sometimes,  doubtless,  avoiding 
employment  altogether,  but  more  commonly  working  in  different 
establishments  or  at  different  occupations.  The  Swiss  men  have 
similarly  held  aloof.  It  is  not  enough  to  say  that  they  naturally 
work  in  a higher  stratum  of  advantage.  I have  quoted  an  official 
lament  for  the  small  number  of  Swiss  masons.  But  theirs  is  an 
occupation  in  which  the  requisite  skill  and  effort  command  low 
wages  — wages  that  are  appreciably  lower  than  they  would  be  if 
there  were  fewer  Italian  competitors.  Although  many  of  the 
masons  are  members  of  the  Federazione  Muraria  Italiana , and 
the  organized  granite  cutters  of  Ticino  have  successfully  waged  at 
least  one  notable  fight,  yet  the  mass  of  the  immigrants,  quite  as 
in  France  and  Germany,  have  cared  little  about  organization.  In 
periods  of  unemployment,  Swiss  labor  interests  have  sometimes 
asked  for  the  exclusion  of  the  foreigners,  but  their  voices  have  not 
hitherto  been  powerful.3 

Whatever  the  alternative  of  life  in  Italy  might  mean,  life  for  the 
Italians  in  Switzerland  is  at  best  a struggle.  Those  in  agriculture, 

prohibited  the  coming  of  street  musicians  and  exhibitors  of  animals  (Carpi,  i,  p.  74). 
A conspicuous  record  of  blood  crime  has  not  helped  to  create  a sentiment  in  favor 
of  the  Italians. 

1 Gavotti,  p.  78. 

2 Sella  (pp.  9-1 1)  gives  some  instances.  A memorable  rising  in  Zurich  in  1S97 
was  quelled  at  heavy  expense.  At  Brieg,  while  the  Simplon  was  building,  the  au- 
thorities had  to  keep  Italians  and  Swiss  apart  in  their  celebrations.  For  an  example 
of  labor  conflict,  see  de  Michelis,  op.  cit.  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1908,  Xo.  10,  p.  74. 

3 See  idem,  op.  cit.  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1903,  Xo.  12,  esp.  pp.  ir,  20,  63-6S,  72, 
111--118;  F.  Lambertenghi,  ‘‘ L’immigrazione  italiana  nel  distretto  consolare  di 
Zurigo,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1903,  Xo.  n,  pp.  51  f.;  A.  Yischer,  “ Gli  italiani  nei  cantoni 
di  Basilea  e di  Soleure,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1903,  Xo.  n,  p.  55;  Gavotti,  p.  79;  “ Relazione 
sui  servizi  . . . aprile  r907-aprile  190S,”  Boll.  Emig.,  190S,  Xo.  9,  p.  121;  Picot, 


SWITZERLAND 


183 

though  they  get  along,  cannot  be  said  to  prosper.  The  excava- 
tors, builders,  and  general  construction  hands  get  wages  which  are 
only  a little  higher  than  those  of  North  Italy.  The  rates  paid 
about  the  beginning  of  the  century  at  the  Simplon  tunnel  were 
fairly  typical  for  the  epoch.  Men  were  there  arranged  in  three 
shifts  working  eight  hours  each,  except  above  ground  where  the 
day  was  of  ten  hours.  Masons  received  5-6  francs,  miners  4-7, 
common  laborers  3.20-3.80;  but  the  Italians,  it  is  claimed, 
rarely  attained  the  maximum  figures.1  In  the  granite  quarries 
at  that  time  men  received  about  40  centimes  an  hour  for  a day 
varying  between  eight  and  a half  and  eleven  hours.  A decade 
later,  on  the  Brieg-Disentis  route,  masons  averaged  6-8  francs, 
miners  5-7,  common  laborers  4.50-6;  above  ground  the  day  was 
of  ten  hours,  below  of  eight.  The  maximum  sums  were  paid  at 
the  Furka  tunnel  which  was  at  two  or  three  days’  walk  from 
Brieg,  at  an  altitude  of  6000  feet.2  Probably  most  Italian  men  in 
Switzerland  have  received  wages  near  the  minimum  rates  I have 
noted,  for  a day  running  to  ten  or  twelve  hours,  according  to 
season.3 

Few  have  had  steady  hire.  They  lose  much  time  between  jobs. 
Inclement  days  halt  their  work.  Even  on  the  great  enterprises 

p.  11 ; Sella,  p.  120.  Cf.  Barni  and  Canevascini  (chs.  v,  vi):  the  Italian  workers, 
when  they  came,  “ seemed  to  be  men  who  snatched  their  bread  from  the  mouths 
of  the  yet  more  wretched  Ticinese  population  ” (p.  163). 

At  a Swiss  trade-union  congress  held  in  Zurich  in  1912,  delegates  from  Switzer- 
land, France,  and  Austria  reported  their  difficulties  in  organizing  the  Italians,  and 
vehement  language  was  used.  Thus,  for  example,  the  representative  of  the  Swiss 
painters  and  plasterers:  “ A chief  task  that  we  had  to  assume  was  to  prevent  these 
people  from  living  like  beasts.  Where  did  they  live  ? Packed  together  in  all  sorts 
of  hovels!  Out  of  these  they  must  be  driven,  in  order  that  they  might  get  used  to 
the  ways  in  which  human  beings  live  and  in  order  that  they  might  understand 
what  other  laborers  must  spend  for  their  maintenance.  ...  In  a word  our  en- 
deavor must  be  to  increase  the  scale  of  needs  of  these  people.”  A.  W.,  “ Die 
Organisierung  der  Italiener  in  Deutschland”  (tit.),  pp.  249-251. 

1 Gavotti,  p.  72;  cf.  Silvestrelli,  p.  7.  Sella  (p.  43),  writing  in  1899  after  the 
work  began,  found  one  mode  about  2.80  francs,  and  one  4;  the  great  majority 
of  Italians  received  less  than  3. 

2 Cameluti,  p.  55. 

3 No  Swiss  official  wage  statistics  exist.  A convenient  survey  is  by  G.  de  Miche- 
lis,  “ Salari  in  uso  nella  Svizzera,”  Bollettino  dell ’ Ufficio  del  Lavoro,  February,  1909, 
pp.  209-232. 


184 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


needing  years  for  completion,  they  contend  with  extraordinary 
fluctuations  of  employment.  Though  premiums  are  often  paid  to 
hold  the  men  for  a stretch  of  weeks  or  months  in  the  uninviting 
places,  the  coming  of  winter  generally  necessitates  a reduction  to 
a fourth  or  a sixth  of  the  summer’s  contingent:  great,  for  example, 
were  the  month-by-month  changes  on  the  Brieg-Disentis  line. 
An  aggravated  competition  has  often  come  from  the  inpouring 
cohorts  of  disappointed  workers  from  Germany,  when  slack  times 
have  begun  in  that  country.  Strikes,  here  as  everywhere,  have 
been  costly,  and  especially  so  to  temporary  immigrants.1  In 
these  and  other  ways  savings  are  truncated  and  there  is  even  the 
failure  to  earn  subsistence.  Swiss  and  sometimes  Italian  chari- 
table agencies  may  tide  a family  or  an  individual  over  a hard 
period.  The  consuls  repatriate  rarely  less  than  a thousand  Ital- 
ians a year,  sometimes  many  more,  and  the  Swiss  cantons  return 
others. 

If  members  of  a family,  not  themselves  earning,  have  to  be 
supported  in  Switzerland,  all  chance  of  saving  ordinarily  disap- 
pears. But  if  an  industrious  man  is  unaccompanied  by  his  family 
and  makes  common  cause  with  other  men,  he  can  generally  save 
money.  By  group  travelling  he  can  keep  down  his  railway  ex- 
penses and  by  group  living  the  cost  of  his  lodging  and  food.  In 
eight  or  nine  months  of  reasonably  good  employment  a man  alone, 
it  is  said,  can  save  perhaps  300  francs.  In  the  first  three  years  of 
work  at  the  Simplon,  an  average  of  1600  men  employed  sent 
annually  300,000  francs  to  Italy;  one-third  of  these  Italians  had 
their  families  in  Switzerland.  Girls  and  women,  if  they  spend  no 
more  than  a franc  a day,  can  save  six  francs  a week  while  em- 
ployed. This  generally  implies  living  in  a Heim,  since  most  girls 
who  venture  independently  can  save  little.  By  contrasting  the 
postal  money-order  remittances  directed  from  Switzerland  into 

On  such  questions  of  employment  as  these,  see,  among  many  references,  Carne- 
luti,  pp.  52  f.;  “ Relazione  sui  servizi,”  etc.,  Boll.  Emig.,  1910,  No.  18,  pp.  228,  274. 
and  1909,  No.  9,  pp.  no,  116;  note  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1907,  No.  13,  p.  127;  G.  de 
Michelis,  “ Ufficio  dell’  emigrazione  italiana  nella  Svizzera,  Relazione,’’  Boll.  Emig., 
1907,  No.  10,  pp.  3-38;  idem,  “ II  mercato  del  lavoro  in  Isvizzera  nella  prima  meta 
dell’  anno  1906,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1906,  No.  6,  pp.  3-8;  idem,  op.  oil.  in  Boll.  Emig., 
1903,  No.  12,  p.  89. 


SWITZERLAND 


185 


Italy  and  vice  versa,  the  Italian  Commissioner- General  of  Emi- 
gration concluded  in  1910  that  his  compatriots  annually  sent 
savings  of  25,000,000  francs  to  their  homes;  and  Dr.  Zollinger, 
estimating  in  addition  the  savings  carried  personally  into  Italy, 
reached  a figure,  for  the  year  1905,  of  20,000,000  francs.  While 
the  aggregate  accumulations  are  certainly  large,  as  even  these 
rough  calculations  show,  it  would  be  a mistake  to  argue  from 
them  to  large  individual  savings.1 

When  the  lives  of  the  Italians  are  viewed  from  the  standpoint  of 
material  comfort  and  well-being,  the  picture  cannot  be  painted  in 
gay  colors.  Their  tasks  are  arduous  enough.  The  day’s  work  is 
less  intermittent  than  in  Italy  and  the  pace  quick.  Intense  cold, 
dampness  in  excavation,  the  stony  resistance  of  the  soil,  the  peril 
of  workplaces,  the  solitude  of  the  heights,  monotony,  the  ennui 
that  accompanies  fatigue,  these  are  the  experiences  of  every  day.2 

The  Italians  live  poorly  (less  well  than  any  other  foreigners  in 
Switzerland),  both  because  they  must  and  because  they  wish  to. 
Whoever  aspires  to  save  must  study  every  penny  of  expenditure, 
and  will  often  not  have  enough  to  eat  nor  a decent  bed  to  lie  on. 

1 See  W.  Zollinger,  Die  Bilanz  der  internationalen  Wertiibertragungen  (Jena,  1914), 
pp.  172-175;  V.  Valeriani,  note  in  Rivista  Coloniale,  May  15, 1914,  p.  265;  Bernardy, 
pp.  26-28,  32,  34,  50;  “ Relazione  sui  servizi,”  etc.,  Boll.  Emig.,  1910,  No.  18, 
p.  228,  Danieli  Camozzi,  report  to  the  Consiglio  Nazionali  delle  Donne  Italiane, 
reviewed  in  Rivista  di  Emigrazione,  November-December,  1908,  pp.  1 19-120;  idem, 
op.  cit.  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1909,  No.  4,  pp.  72-74;  de  Michelis,  op.  cit.  in  Boll.  Emig., 
1908,  No.  10,  p.  62;  idem,  op.  cit.  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1903,  No.  12,  pp.  23,  71  f.,  75-77; 
Marazzi,  op.  cit.  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1903,  No.  n,  p.  23;  Lucchesi-Palli,  p.  45.  In  1913, 
the  Italian  minister  at  Berne,  after  a visit  to  the  Italians  of  the  Brieg-Disentis  and 
I.oetschberg  routes,  reported  that  they  were  scarcely  able  to  make  savings;  see 
Bollettino  dell’  TJfficio  del  Lavoro  ( ediz . quindicinale) , November  1,  1913,  p.  236. 

At  the  Simplon,  Sella  observed  two  diverse  phenomena,  having,  he  supposed,  a 
common  origin:  one,  the  readiness  to  spend  wages  in  the  freest  indulgence  for  from 
one  to  three  days;  the  other,  the  consistent  saving  of  every  possible  centime;  no 
middle  course  appeared  to  exist  (p.  53).  At  another  point  (p.  33)  he  makes  the 
general  statement  that  Italians  have  saved  money  while  abroad. 

2 During  the  building  of  the  St.  Gothard  tunnel,  several  hundred  men  lost  their 
lives  through  accident  or  sickness.  At  the  Simplon  sixty  died.  See  H.  A.  Carson, 
article  “ Tunnel  ” in  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  nth  ed.,  xxvii,  p.  405.  In  the  first 
five  months  8 per  cent  had  fallen  sick  or  met  with  accidents  (de  Michelis,  “ Gli 
operai  italiani  al  Sempione,”  p.  149).  One  accident  at  the  Loetschberg  destroyed 
twenty-five  Italians  (Mancini,  p.  280). 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


186 

Prices  are  found  to  rise  whenever  numbers  of  workers  settle  in 
remote  and  sparsely  inhabited  places;  while  the  railroad  connect- 
ing the  Rhine  and  the  Rhone  valleys  was  in  process  of  construc- 
tion, several  temporary  villages  had  to  be  built,  in  which  the 
lodgings  were  both  unsatisfactory  and  expensive:  and  so  it  had 
been  at  the  Simplon.  In  temporary  shacks  unsanitary  conditions 
are  almost  the  rule.  But  not  alone  in  them.  Whenever,  as  hap- 
pens throughout  the  country,  Italian,  or  sometimes  Swiss,  families 
take  Italians  as  boarders,  congestion  and  dirt  quickly  appear.  In 
some  of  the  cities,  the  conditions  are  particularly  bad.  Basel  is 
one  of  those  centers,  numerous  in  other  countries  also,  where 
Italians  who  work  in  the  suburbs  prefer  to  live  in  a crowded 
colony  in  the  city.  The  factory  girls  who  dwell  in  the  Heime,  of 
which  in  1908  there  were  thirty-three,  live  meagerly  yet  tolerably, 
but  those  who  live  independently,  three  or  four,  even  six  or  eight 
to  a room,  suffer  in  health  from  their  economy.  Far  and  wide 
among  the  immigrants,  toil  and  self-stinting  levy  their  tax  upon 
bodily  capital.1 

1 On  conditions  of  living  and  health,  see,  e.g.,  G.  E.  Palma  di  Castiglione,  “ Gli 
italiani  a St.  Moritz,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1912,  No.  12,  p.  87;  Carneluti,  p.  54;  Calimani, 
p.  127;  Bernardy,  pp.  6-9,  35  (she  however  believed  the  conditions  of  the  girls  to 
be  less  cruel  and  congested  than  she  had  seen  among  Italians  in  the  United  States) ; 
Danieli  Camozzi,  op.  cit.  in  Rivista  di  Emigrazione,  pp.  57-59;  idem,  article  (in  Vita 
Femminile  Italiana ) summarized  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1909,  No.  4,  p.  73;  “ Relazione  sui 
servizi,”  etc.,  Boll.  Emig.,  1910,  No.  18,  p.  232;  de  Michelis,  op.  cit.  in  Boll.  Emig., 
1908,  No.  10,  p.  78;  idem,  op.  cit.  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1903,  No.  12,  pp.  38-44,  73; 
Schmid,  p.  89;  Sella,  pp.  31-33,  47;  Paolucci  de’  Calboli,  cited  by  A.  Cabrini  in 
Rivista  Coloniale,  January  31,  1914,  p.  53. 

Here  is  a passage  from  de  Michelis  {Boll.  Emig.,  1903,  No.  12,  p.  42):  “ The  most 
elementary  rules  of  cleanliness,  decency,  hygiene  are  unknown.  With  pain  one 
notes  that  they  are  always  lodged  in  the  least  healthful  quarters  of  the  city,  in  dark 
houses  not  penetrated  by  the  sun.  . . . Most  of  the  immigrants,  in  the  working 
season,  live  in  groups,  several  to  a room.  Sometimes  no  bedsteads  are  there  and  the 
workmen  sleep  on  bundles  of  straw  dropped  on  the  floor.  Often,  as  well,  there  are 
no  pillows  and  two  men  stretched  upon  the  same  bed  are  a common  case.  For  the 
most  part  these  nocturnal  Siamese  twins  were  unacquainted  with  each  other  the 
day  before.  They  arrive  at  the  ‘ pension  ’ applying  for  ,a  bed  and  they  lie  down 
where  they  have  been  told,  without  repugnance  or  complaint.  In  the  morning, 
having  spent  the  night  in  sleep,  these  bedfellows  strike  an  acquaintance. 

“ So  it  is  everywhere,  in  the  great  cities  and  in  the  villages.  In  Geneva  the  en- 
tire old  quarter  running  from  the  rues  basses  to  the  Cathedral  swarms  with  ‘ work- 
men’s pensions  ’ and  taverns.  There,  next  to  the  brothels,  are  the  houses  inhabited 
by  the  Italians.” 


SWITZERLAND 


187 


The  experiences  and  moods  of  the  Italians  out  of  working  hours 
are  hard  to  trace,  for  it  is  only  occasional  flashes  of  light  that  are 
directed  upon  them,  and  only  the  externals  of  change  are  revealed. 
New  views  of  the  world,  the  State,  social  life,  grow  out  of  their 
fortunes  and  disappointments  and  out  of  the  civilization  about 
them.  The  need  for  recreation  and  refreshment  finds  utterance 
in  novel  and  not  always  salutary  directions. 

The  children  get  neither  a Swiss  nor  an  Italian  school  education, 
often  no  systematic  instruction  at  all.  Their  parents,  tired  with 
moiling  and  toiling,  worn  out  by  the  pain  of  saving,  are  not  less 
illiterate  nor  more  schooled  than  when  they  came.  Rarely  do  the 
men’s  numerous  mutual  aid  societies  exceed  their  primary  func- 
tion of  providing  a modicum  of  benefit  in  sickness,  and  indeed  the 
entire  associated  life  of  the  immigrants  is  insignificant.  Between 
those  of  different  regions  of  origin,  clashes  are  frequent.1  The 
cafe  on  Saturday  and  Sunday  is  an  institution.  If  drunkenness  is 
more  than  in  Italy,  it  is  perhaps  less  than  among  the  Italians  in 
some  other  countries.  The  universal  tendency  to  blood  crimes 
appears.  Along  with  fidelity  in  sending  savings  to  the  home  in 
Italy,  yet  less  commonly,  goes  a certain  weakening  of  family  ties; 
often  desertion,  bringing  poverty  in  its  train.  The  girls  of  the 
factories,  more  fixed  in  their  abode  than  the  men  who  come  by  the 
season,  frequently,  it  is  held,  develop  illicit  relations  with  them. 
Among  the  men  churchgoing  greatly  diminishes.  A large  number 
come  to  favor  the  radical  movements  for  social  reclamation,  but, 
as  commonly  happens  among  those  whose  life  is  a routine  of  toil, 
not  many  become  active  propagandists  or  even  join  the  more 
radical  associations;  the  relative  weakness  in  particular  of  the 
Italian  socialist  organization  in  the  Ticino  has  been  remarked.2 

1 Sella,  pp.  46,  54.  Rivalries  broke  up  the  Figli  d’ltalia  and  other  societies 
(pp.  110-116). 

2 On  some  of  these  questions,  see,  e.g.,  de’  Calboli,  loc.  cit.;  Calimani,  p.  127; 
Pasteris,  p.  457;  Bernardy,  pp.  58-62;  de  Michelis,  “ I.e  associazioni  italiane  nella 
Svizzera,  politiche,  artistiche,  di  istruzione,  di  convegno  e di  sport,”  in  Boll.  Emig., 
1908,  No.  22,  pp.  3-23;  idem,  “ La  mutuality  fra  gli  italiani  nella  Svizzera,”  Boll. 
Emig.,  1908,  No.  10,  pp.  3-49;  idem,  op.  cit.  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1903,  No.  12,  pp.  n, 
38  f.,  72,  130;  Schmid,  “ Das  Armenwesen,”  etc.,  p.  90;  G.  Barni,  “ La  Svizzera 
contemporanea;  gli  italiani  nel  canton  Ticino,”  Rivista  d’ltalia,  August,  1914, 
pp.  223-272,  esp.  p.  225. 


i88 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


Much  of  the  special  sting  of  immigrant  life  in  France  and  Ger- 
many has  been  absent  in  Switzerland,  and  the  welcome  of  the 
Italians  has  been  a little  kindlier  than  in  those  countries.  But  it 
is  still  as  the  servants  of  capital  — Swiss,  and  even  German  and 
French,  not  Italian  — that  they  come,  and  they  have  rarely  risen 
out  of  the  walk  of  life  in  which  they  began. 


CHAPTER  XI 


AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 

In  Austria-Hungary,  unexampled  among  countries,  the  tides  of 
emigration  and  of  immigration  have  both  run  strong.  While 
from  its  component  states  common  and  agricultural  laborers  have 
set  forth  for  the  countries  of  Europe  and  America  at  a rate  com- 
parable only  with  that  of  Italy,  Italian  toilers  have  left  behind 
them  Alps  and  Adriatic  in  quest  of  work  in  the  dual  monarchy. 
It  has  been  a strange  spectacle,  for  no  love  has  been  lost  between 
the  two  countries.  Only  the  call  of  bread  has  made  the  traditional 
enemy  tolerable. 

The  modern  immigration  of  Italians  into  Austria-Hungary  is 
made  partly  intelligible  when  we  recall  that  important  Italian 
settlements  have  had  a long  history  there.  In  the  thirteenth  to 
the  sixteenth  centuries  many  Italian  immigrants  established 
themselves  in  the  Tyrol  — the  Italo-German  dispute  there  is  very 
old.  Some  Italians  had  settled  on  the  littoral  in  the  Roman  era; 
more  came  in  the  twelfth  century,  mingling  with  a native  stock  of 
different  race.  The  Dalmatian  communities  likewise  began  in 
ancient  times.  In  the  thirteenth  century,  Italians  brought  vines 
into  Hungary  to  restock  the  Tokai  districts;  the  Fiume  colony  is 
centuries  old.  In  1910  not  less  than  three-quarters  of  a million 
subjects  of  Austria  spoke  Italian  or  Ladine.  An  equal  number 
spoke  Serbo-Croatian;  more,  in  a rising  series,  Slovenian,  Ru- 
thenian,  Polish,  Bohemian,  German.  In  order  of  diffusion,  then, 
Italian  had  come  to  be  the  seventh  language  in  Austria.1 

All  of  the  Italian-speaking  subjects  have  lived  in  only  seven 
states,  in  some  of  which  they  have  been  relatively  few.  In 
Vorarlberg  they  were,  in  1910,  5900,  while  the  great  majority  of 
the  population  of  133,000  spoke  German.  In  Dalmatia,  they 
were  18,000;  nearly  all  the  rest  of  635,000  spoke  Serbo-Croatian, 

1 My  census  data  are  from  Osterreichische  Statistik,  Die  Ergelnisse  der  Volkszah- 
lung  vom  31  Dezember  igio  (Vienna,  19^-14),  esp.  i,  Pt.  ii. 


190  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

Ragusa,  emphatically  Italian  in  the  days  of  its  independence, 
contained  only  526  individuals  ordinarily  speaking  Italian,  in 
a population  of  39,000.  But  if  Dalmatia,  once  saved  to  western 
civilization  by  the  Italians,  has  now  lost  much  of  its  Latin  char- 
acter, the  states  around  the  head  of  the  Adriatic  have  not.  In 
Gorz  and  Gradisca,  the  Italian-Ladine  subjects  were  90,000  in  a 
total  of  250,000,  being  chiefly  exceeded  by  the  Slovenes  with 
155,000;  in  Monfalcone  they  were  46,000  in  48,000.  In  Istria 
they  were  147,000  in  a total  of  387,000,  being  chiefly  exceeded  by 
the  Serbo-Croats  with  168,000.  In  Triest,  they  were  as  many  as 
119,000  in  191,000,  the  Slovenes  being  next  with  only  57,000. 
Here  they  constituted  a merchant  and  industrial  aristocracy. 
Beyond  the  Italian  Alps,  in  the  Tyrol,  the  largest  Italian  com- 
munity of  all,  they  were  386,000  in  916,000,  nearly  all  the  rest 
speaking  German  (525,000).  But  these  last  figures  are  decidedly 
misleading.  While  in  Bruneck  and  the  Bozen  district  Italians 
were  to  Germans  as  one  to  five  and  one  to  nine  respectively,  in 
every  other  district  or  city  of  the  Tyrol  the  population  was  either 
almost  entirely  German  or  almost  entirely  Italian.  What  is  more, 
a line  drawn  irregularly  from  the  Stelvio  Pass  in  the  west  to 
Landro  in  the  east  sharply  marks  off  the  German  or  northern  por- 
tion of  the  Tyrol  from  the  Italian  and  Ladine  portion;  in  turn  the 
Ladine  portion,  involving  a people  whose  Italian  association  is 
linguistic  only,  is  sharply  marked  off  from  the  portion  which  is 
Italian  in  sentiment  and  tradition  as  well  as  unqualifiedly  in 
speech.1 

Wherever  in  Austria  an  Italian-speaking  population  has  con- 
tinued to  exist  for  generations,  there  also  have  been  the  chief 
nuclei  of  permanent  immigrant  settlement.  Triest,  the  Tyrol. 

1 On  the  distribution  of  peoples,  see  B.  Auerbach,  Les  races  el  les  nalionaUtes  en 
Autriclie-Hongrie  (Paris,  1898),  chs.  iv,  viii,  Lx,  .xiv. 

For  both  Austria  and  Hungary,  the  census  figures  of  Italian-speaking  population 
are  minima.  (See  the  writings,  among  many,  of  Auerbach,  cit.,  and  of  Gayda,  referred 
to  below.)  The  best  evidence  concerns  inconsistencies  and  intercensal  lapses,  but 
these  are  sporadic  only,  and  suggest  that  neither  a large  general  increase  of  the 
figures  nor  an  important  increase  in  any  state’s  figures  is  necessary.  One  cannot 
go  so  far,  for  instance,  as  a writer,  A.  Dudan,  who  holds,  in  an  essay  (pp.  65-1 24) 
contained  in  La  Dalmazia  (Genoa,  1915),  that  the  18,000  Italians  ot  Dalmatia 
should  be  60,000  at  least. 


A USTRIA-HUNGARY 


191 

Gorz  and  Gradisca,  Istria,  Carinthia,  Styria,  these  regions  have 
contained  nearly  all  of  the  unnaturalized  Italian  population. 
Lower  Austria,  with  Vienna,  has  had  a modicum,  Dalmatia  a 
negligible  number  (2400).  When  the  Austrian  census  of  1869 
was  taken,  29,496  citizens  of  Italy  were  reported.  They  were 
then  half  as  numerous  as  subjects  of  Germany  and  a third  as 
numerous  as  subjects  of  Hungary.  In  this  order,  but  not  quite  in 
this  ratio,  the  three  nationalities  continued  till  lately.  In  1880, 
40,152  Italians  were  counted;  in  1890,  46,312;  in  1900,  63,064; 
in  1910,  79,062.  Their  increase  after  1890  was  at  a faster  rate 
than  that  of  Germans  or  Hungarians.  Since  the  censuses  were 
taken  in  the  winter,  the  figures  represent  only  Italians  who  had 
made  a fairly  enduring  stay  in  Austria;  indeed  still  other  statistics 
show  only  about  one  in  forty  to  have  been  sojourning  temporarily 
and  at  least  one  in  three  to  have  been  resident  more  than  three 
years.  After  ten  years,  when  naturalization  is  possible,  a small 
group  — they  came  to  3785  in  1 901-10,  about  one  for  each  day  in 
the  period  — disappear  wholly  from  the  count  of  aliens.  Con- 
sider further  that  among  these  immigrants  the  male  element  has 
exceeded  the  female  by  only  a little,  and  that  to  a very  unusual 
extent  the  men  have  been  married.  In  fact,  nearly  70  per  cent  of 
the  men  above  thirty  years,  and  80  per  cent  of  the  women  wrere 
found  to  be  married.1 

How  diversified  have  been  the  industrial  connections  of  this  rela- 
tively permanent  immigration  it  is  worth  stopping  to  note.  The 
figures  here  given  include  the  members  of  the  worker’s  family 
when  they  too  have  dwelt  in  Austria.  One  thousand  Italians  were 
in  forestry  in  1910,  and  7500  in  agriculture.  In  the  building  trades 
were  10,800.  In  work  upon  stone  and  earth  were  4500;  upon 
wood,  and  in  carving,  substantially  as  many;  in  the  textiles  2400; 

1 Ergebnisse  der  Volkszahlung,  ii,  Pt.  ii,  p.  25.*  By  residence  the  79,062  Italians 
(of  whom  41,921  were  males)  were  grouped  chiefly  as  follows:  in  Triest,  29,439; 
in  Tyrol,  12,850;  in  Gorz  and  Gradisca,  8947;  in  Istria,  6027;  in  Carinthia,  4637; 
in  Lower  Austria,  4199  (of  whom,  in  Vienna,  2502);  in  Styria,  4127;  in  Dalmatia, 
2425;  in  Vorarlberg,  1449;  in  Bohemia,  1317.  In  no  other  state  did  they  attain 
1200.  Since,  however,  the  census  was  taken  on  December  31,  it  makes  no  allow- 
ance for  seasonal  immigration.  In  Hungary,  in  1900,  9035  Italian  subjects  were 
counted. 


192 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


in  the  metals  2600;  in  machinery,  boiler  making,  and  the  like 
1800;  in  the  chemical  trades,  more  than  900,  and  as  many  in 
paper  and  leather  establishments.  The  clothing  industry,  in- 
cluding laundry  work,  maintained  5700;  the  preparation  of  food 
and  drinks,  2500.  Mining  sustained  600;  so  also  the  work  of 
illumination  and  of  water  conduction.  More  than  400  depended 
upon  fisheries.  To  these  must  be  added  certain  minor  groups 
which  reached  a considerable  total.  Broadly  speaking,  the 
figures  ought  to  be  halved  to  denote  the  workers  actually  engaged 
in  the  occupations  as  distinguished  from  those  dependent  upon 
them.1 

In  the  Tyrol  and  Vorarlberg  the  Italians  have  increased  with 
particular  rapidity.  They  doubled  between  1870  and  1890.  and 
again  between  1890  and  1910.  In  the  winter  of  the  last  year  they 
numbered  13,000  in  the  Tyrol  and  1500  in  Vorarlberg,  the  women 
being  almost  as  many  as  the  men.  In  the  German  Tyrol  they 
were  half  as  numerous  as  in  the  Trentino.  How  many  besides 
have  come  for  the  summer  is  partly  a matter  of  conjecture;  a 
computation,  resting  on  sundry  important  data,  has  claimed 
1 2, 000. 2 Out  of  the  total  of  about  25,000,  certainly  several  thou- 
sands have  been  masons  and  building  laborers,  deriving  from 
Udine  and  other  parts  of  Venetia.3  A great  many  were  plain 
pick-and-shovel  men.  Indeed,  throughout  western  Austria  un- 
skilled immigrants  have  abounded.  In  house  building  and  general 
construction  work  — the  erection  of  power  plants,  for  example  — 
and  in  road  making  many  Italians  have  been  employed.  The 
tunnelling  of  the  Arlberg,  completed  in  1884,  was  their  work;  a 
venture  hardly  less  exacting  in  its  day  than  the  penetration,  years 
later,  of  the  Simplon,  and  of  about  the  same  commercial  impor- 

1 Ergcbnisse  der  Volkszahlung,  ii,  Pt.  ii,  p.  63. 

2 G.  De  Lucchi,  “ L’emigrazione  italiana  nel  distretto  consolare  di  Innsbruck,” 
Boll.  Eviig.,  1913,  No.  14,  p.  7.  In  the  figure  given,  no  account  is  made  of  the 
Italians  who  pass  through  Innsbruck,  to  and  from  German}-.  Going  and  coming, 
these  have  numbered  every  year  1 25, 000-r 50,000. 

3 In  the  Rhista  Coloniale , January  1-15, 1913,  p.  14,  S.  Flor,  in  a report  presented 
to  the  Congresso  dei  Segretariati  Laici  in  r9i2,  held  that  the  masons  in  Tyrol  and 
Vorarlberg  numbered  6000,  and  that  the  5000  Italian  hodcarriers  and  the  like  in 
Austria  were  chiefly  in  these  regions. 


AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 


193 


tance.  Among  those  who  worked  on  the  Arlberg  were  many  who 
had  just  come  from  the  St.  Gothard.1  The  skilled  craftsmen  have 
included  carpenters  and  stonecutters.  Until  recently  the  older 
type  of  circumambulant  artificers,  glaziers,  scissors  grinders, 
pewterers,  braziers,  came  to  the  Trentino  and  the  Tyrol;  to  the 
Trentino  almost  exclusively  came  Brescian  rope  makers  and  chair 
menders.  Though  immigrants  of  these  sorts  had  come  for  forty 
years — hundreds  sometimes  in  a year,  it  is  said — they  had 
almost  disappeared  before  the  war,  partly  because  of  new  license 
restrictions. 

About  1890  an  increase  began  in  an  immigration  which  had  long 
existed  and  has  since  become  one  of  the  most  characteristic. 
While  the  men  of  Belluno  were  going  into  Switzerland,  Germany, 
and  Austria,  the  women  and  children  discovered  that  they  could 
make  a better  living  abroad  than  by  doing  simple  household  work 
or  hiring  out  at  home.  Girls  chiefly  and  young  wives,  of  the  ages 
fourteen  to  thirty,  they  began  to  go  into  the  Trentino  and  even 
the  southern  Tyrol.  Until  before  the  war,  they  continued  to 
flock  thither,  two  or  three  thousand  and  more  a year.  Many  girls 
of  only  ten  or  twelve  have  been  among  them.  In  their  home 
communes,  school  attendance  almost  stops  in  March.  What  is 
chiefly  characteristic  in  this  emigration  of  “ciode,”  as  they  are 
called,  is  its  destination  for  agriculture.  To  some  extent  their 
opportunity  has  been  occasioned  by  the  departure  for  the  Amer- 
icas of  a small  but  steady  annual  contingent  of  Trentine  peasants.2 
Enrolled  in  Italy  by  Italian  women,  and  mainly  in  Belluno,  the 
“ ciode  ” have  come  in  late  February  or  in  March  for  an  eight- 
months  stay.  Until  1908  an  outdoor  market  for  their  labor  was 
held  in  the  Piazza  del  Duomo  in  Trent,  but  thereafter  the  public 
authorities  instituted  a better  organization.  The  care  of  animals 
and  other  farm  chores  — of  household  or  field  — have  been  the 
stint  of  the  younger  children,  the  older  ones  and  the  women  as- 

1 Great  Britain,  Royal  Commission  on  Labor,  viii  (London,  1893),  p.  82. 

2 The  Trentines  first  began  to  emigrate  in  large  numbers  about  the  middle  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  Those  locally  specialized  in  their  skill  went  into  the  neigh- 
boring countries  of  Europe.  In  many  respects  this  emigration  invites  a parallel 
with  that  of  Venetia  and  Piedmont.  For  a word  regarding  it  see  the  interesting 
work  of  C.  Battisti,  II  Trentino  (Trent,  1898),  pp.  237-239. 


194 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


suming  tasks  which  in  Italy  are  often  performed  by  men:  propping 
up  the  Indian  corn,  spraying  the  vines  (carrying  the  pumps  all 
day  on  their  shoulders),  cultivating  with  the  hoe,  reaping  and 
gathering  wheat  and  corn,  piling  hay,  attending  to  the  vintage 
and,  when  no  other  tasks  have  remained,  plucking  weeds.1 

In  Rovereto,  Riva,  and  Trent,  containing  half  the  more  stable 
Italian  population,  industry  has  thriven.  Tobacco  and  silk  fac- 
tories, tile,  brick,  and  pottery  works  have  occupied  many  Italians; 
and  barbers,  tailors,  and  importers  of  Italian  fruits  and  vegetables 
have  been  numerous.  Women  too  have  had  employment,  not 
only  as  factory  operatives,  but  as  cooks,  nurses,  waitresses  — a 
type  of  Italian  emigration  which  has  generally  been  uncommon 
in  other  countries.2 

In  Lower  Austria,  Styria,  Salzburg,  Carinthia,  Carniola,  and 
Ktistenland,  masons  and  general  laborers  have  been  numerous. 
As  late  as  the  beginning  of  the  present  century,  it  was  claimed  that 
nearly  all  of  the  digging  laborers  of  Styria  and  Carniola  were  Ital- 
ian. Before  the  war,  Italians  had  almost  ceased  to  be  employed 
on  the  railways:  earlier,  they  had  worked  on  the  Triest-Parenzo 
line,  the  Triest-Vienna,  and,  farther  north,  the  Krems-Prein  along 
the  Danube,  and  the  Aspang-Friedburg.  These  are  but  examples. 
They  helped  build  for  Triest  the  drinking-water  aqueduct  of  the 
Aurisina;  and  that  from  the  Styrian  border  to  Vienna.  The 
Donaugraben  (canal)  of  Lower  Austria  was  largely  their  work. 
In  various  regions  they  have  specialized  in  the  construction  of 
electric  power  plants.  The  general  laborers  have  been  farm  hands 
from  Venetia,  who  used  to  leave  home  after  the  spring  tasks  had 
been  completed  and  return  for  the  harvest.  Sawmill  hands  have 
been  numerous,  and  workers  in  cement  an  important  skilled  type. 
In  large  numbers  the  immigrants  have  worked  in  the  naval  shops 
of  Monfalcone  and  Triest;  in  the  latter  place  also  on  general 

1 Jarach,  “Dell’  emigrazione  delle  donne  e dei  rninorenni  bellunesi  nel  Trentino 
e nel  Tirolo  Meridionale”  («/.),  pp.  48-61;  De  Lucchi,  pp.  28-35.  Jarach  was  a 
special  agent  commissioned  by  the  Emigration  Service  to  study  this  movement. 

2 N.  R.  Bonfanti,  “ Dell’  immigrazione  regnicola  nel  Trentino,”  Boll.  Emig., 
1912,  No.  12,  pp.  42  f.;  P.  Baroli,  “ L’emigrazione  nel  Tirolo  e nel  Yorarlberg,” 
Emig.  e Col.,  1903,  i'‘,  p.  112;  De  Lucchi,  p.  38. 


A USTRIA-HUNGARY 


195 


port  construction.1  On  public  works,  except  as  a rule  those  con- 
cerned with  military  affairs,  they  have  at  various  times  been 
abundantly  employed.  Some  tradespeople  have  come,  especially 
from  the  South  of  Italy,  to  handle  oils,  wines,  and  the  citrous  fruits. 
Street  musicians  and  their  kin  were  once  ubiquitous,  but  of  late 
years  have  been  discouraged.2 

No  more  picturesque,  no  more  characteristic  emigrants  depart 
from  Italy  than  the  fishermen  of  Chioggia;  perhaps  no  more  ven- 
turesome folk.  In  the  very  names  of  their  barks  romance  lives. 
The  Adriatic  shines  with  the  redness  of  their  sails  and  mirrors  the 
strange  devices  with  which  these  are  adorned,  a cross,  the  Ma- 
donna, the  wings  of  a butterfly  — what  not  ? Four  or  five  men 
together,  they  set  forth  on  long  voyages  over  seas  now  pacific  now 
tumultuous.  Many  make  four  voyages  a year.  After  Easter 
they  depart,  to  return  in  mid-August  for  a month  of  rest  and  re- 
pairs. When  they  go  again,  it  is  for  a trip  of  eight  or  nine  weeks, 
their  viaggio  magro,  for  it  yields  little.  From  the  end  of  October 
till  Christmas  they  are  gone  again,  and  make  a good  catch. 
Finally,  after  a holiday  week  with  their  families,  many  set  forth 
once  more  in  the  chill  winds  of  January  and  February,  expecting 
little  and  therefore  not  disappointed.  Easter  every  true  Chiog- 

1 In  a generally  excellent  book,  translated  as  Modern  Austria  (New  York,  1915; 
see  esp.  ch.  i),  V.  Gayda  maintains  that  Slavic  workmen,  to  the  exclusion  of  Italians, 
were  here  employed.  My  own  statement  is  based  on  the  Italian  consular  reports. 
There  has  been  enough  — alas!  — of  the  obnoxious  in  the  Austrian  handling  of  the 
Trentino.  One  need  not,  with  Gayda,  lay  stress  also  on  the  emigration  of  the 
Trentine  peasants,  for  it  has  been  much  less  than  that  from  Lombardy  and  Venetia, 
long  redeemed  for  the  government  of  Italy.  Nor  should  one  ignore  the  readiness 
of  still  larger  numbers  of  Italians  to  immigrate  into  the  Trentino  to  earn  a living. 
If  Croats  were  introduced  there  for  railway  work,  immigrant  Italians,  on  the  other 
hand,  were  much  used  for  construction  work.  And  finally,  though  Slavic  elements 
have  established  themselves  in  Triest,  the  Italian  population  there  has  grown  even 
faster,  Italian  immigrants  into  the  district  having  outnumbered  all  Slavic  additions. 

2 Flor,  loc.  cit.;  “ Relazione  sui  servizi . . . per  l’anno  1909-10,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1910, 
No.  18,  p.  251;  G.  Zannoni,  “ L’emigrazione  e le  colonie  italiane  in  Austria,”  Emig. 
e Col.,  1903,  ii!,  pp.  95-104;  B.  Lambertenghi,  “ La  nostra  immigrazione  e le  nostre 
colonie  nel  distretto  consolare  di  Trieste,”  Emig.  e Col.,  1903,  i",  pp.  105-m;  G. 
Chiap,  “ L’emigrazione  periodica  dal  Friuli,”  Riforma  Sociale,  May,  1904,  p.  385; 
G.  Prato,  “ II  movimento  d’ associazione  nelle  colonie  italiane  dell’  Austria,”  Riforma 
Sociale,  September,  1899,  pp.  870  f . ; G.  Malmusi  and  M.  Camicia,  reports  in  Emig. 
e Col.,  1893,  pp.  83-97. 


196  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

giotto  spends  with  his  family.  Unlike  all  other  Venetians,  these 
men  are  taciturn  and  reserved;  what  else  could  they  be,  since 
they  are  so  long  sequestered  from  company  and  the  world’s 
affairs  ? Though  the  Gulf  of  Triest  and  the  whole  northeast 
shore  of  the  Adriatic  is  their  fishing-ground,  they  have  sold  their 
catch  mainly  in  Triest.  Of  late  years,  it  has  gone  for  half  a mil- 
lion to  a million  lire,  or  even  more  when  the  sardines  and  tunny 
fish  have  been  abundant.  Five  or  six  hundred  men  have  so  pro- 
vided from  a third  to  nearly  a half  of  the  fish  supply  of  a great 
city.  How  long  ago  their  work  began  no  man  can  say;  certainly 
it  was  in  the  epoch  of  Venetian  domination.1 

In  the  Balkan  West,  in  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina,  Italians  have 
done  pioneer  work  on  the  railways.  Although  almost  none  came 
before  the  Austrian  occupation,  they  were  present  as  early  as 
1881,  binding  Zenica  and  Serajevo  by  rail.  Between  1888  and 
1895,  six  lines  were  completed,  on  which  Italians  have  been 
claimed,  with  possible  exaggeration,  to  constitute  a sixth  of  all 
workmen.  These  were  the  lines  Mostar-Ostrozac,  Mostar- 
Konjitca,  Mostar-Serajevo,  Lasva-Travnik,  Lasva-Bugojno,  and 
Vakuf-Jajce.  The  tunnel  Travnik-Bugojna  was  built  by  an  Ital- 
ian contractor.  In  1899-1901,  in  the  construction  of  the  Gabela- 
Trebinje  line,  cut  through  the  rocky  terrain  of  Herzegovina, 
parallel  with  the  Dalmatian  coast,  some  thousands  of  Italians 
had  a part.  Other  thousands  worked  on  the  Serajevo-Ostgrenze 
line,  a succession  of  bridges,  embankments,  and  tunnels  running 
by  Mitrovitza  to  the  Ottoman  frontier;  only  the  default  of 
Austro-Hungarians,  to  whom  preference  in  employment  was  to  be 
given,  opened  the  way  for  Italians.  And  in  more  recent  years, 
indeed,  only  the  somewhat  skilled  workmen  have  come,  one  or  two 
thousand  in  the  open  months.  As  masons  and  others  they  have 
accomplished  much  for  the  modernization  of  Serajevo.  In  coal 
mining  and  lumbering,  many  have  been  employed.  In  the  last- 
named  industry  and  in  agriculture,  Venetians  are  said  to  have 

1 C.  Umilta,  “ I pescatori  chioggiotti  nella  circoscrizione  del  r.  consolato  in 
Trieste,”  Boll.  Emlg.,  1910,  No.  5,  pp.  21-50;  S.  Milazzo,  “ La  Dalmazia  e le  sue 
colonie  italiane,”  Emig.  e Col.,  1903,  i!i,  p.  120. 


A U STRIA-HUNG  ARY 


197 


taken  the  places  of  Mussulmans  (who  had  migrated  eastward) 
and  to  have  applied  more  effective  methods  in  their  work.  In 
1910  the  Italian  Commissioner-General  of  Emigration  supposed 
his  countrymen  here,  permanent  or  temporary  in  their  settlement, 
to  number  6000;  but  the  figure  may  be  excessive.1 

In  Dalmatia,  despite  its  Italian-speaking  littoral,  Italian  sub- 
jects have  been  few.  The  oldest  and  most  important  settlement, 
Zara,  has  come  to  be  less  than  one-tenth  Italian.  The  temporary 
immigrants  have  been  as  likely  to  hail  from  Ancona  or  the  Apulias 
as  from  Venetia;  fourteen  hours  suffice  for  the  transit  from  An- 
cona. To  the  Dalmatian  waters  many  Chioggia  fishermen  have 
come,  selling  little  of  their  catch,  however,  in  the  island  and  coast 
markets.  Some  important  railway  work  has  been  done.  In  gen- 
eral, however,  the  century  since  Campoformio  has  marked  a 
decline  in  the  Italian  role  in  Dalmatia.2 

The  several  thousands  of  Italians  who  annually  have  entered 
Hungary,  and  likewise  those  more  permanently  there,  have  rarely 
been  of  the  unspecialized  sort.  Before  the  twentieth  century 
began,  many  worked  on  railway  construction;  since,  the  oppor- 
tunity has  seldom  been  offered.  Masons,  stonecutters,  stucco 
workers  have  found  good  employment.  At  one  time,  in  fact, 
reports  to  the  Italian  Emigration  Service  claimed  that  Italians 
were  doing  almost  all  the  new  stucco  work  of  Budapest,  and  that 
many  were  employed  on  subway  construction.  Men  from  South 
Italy  have  imported  the  staple  food  products  of  their  districts. 
In  the  years  after  1880,  Venetians  established  curious  agricul- 
tural settlements  in  Croatia  and  Slavonia,  with  a nucleus  at 
Pakraz,  which  have  since  tended  to  lose  their  identity.  Other 
Venetians  have  mined  coal  and  certain  metals.  As  many  perhaps 
as  1500  immigrants,  a fourth  of  them  boys,  all  deriving  from 
Udine  and  Treviso,  have  long  found  employment  in  the  brick 

1 “ Relazione  sui  servizi,”  etc.,  p.  252;  G.  Giacchi,  “ La  colonia  italiana  in 
Bosnia-Erzegovina,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1910,  No.  13,  pp.  3-1 1;  idem,  “II  lavoro  degli 
italiani  in  Bosnia  ed  Erzegovina,-’  Boll.  Emig.,  1906,  No.  5,  pp.  3-10;  note  in  Boll. 
Emig.,  1903,  No.  s,  p.  58;  V.  Mantegazza,  L’altra  sponda;  Italia  ed  Austria  nell' 
Adriatico  (2d  ed.,  Milan,  1906),  pp.  119-122. 

2 Milazzo,  op.  cit.;  Mantegazza,  pp.  358,  436  f.;  L.  Mordini,  “ La  Dalmazia  e 
le  sue  colonie  italiane,”  Emig.  e Col.,  1903,  i‘‘,  pp.  121-124. 


198 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


ovens  of  Croatia,  seventy  of  which,  it  was  claimed  some  years  ago, 
they  themselves  managed.  The  laborers  have  commonly  made 
their  contracts  in  Italy  in  the  winter.  In  recent  years,  unskilled 
immigrants  have  found  but  limited  opportunities  in  Hungary; 
and  neither  they  nor  the  skilled  have  shown  much  tendency  to 
stay  permanently.1 

To  Austria  and  Hungary  an  economic  gain  has  certainly  come 
from  the  immigration  of  Italians,  and  has  been  recognized. 
Natives  of  these  lands,  however,  gradually  becoming  more  mobile, 
have,  for  some  years  past,  taken  over  much  of  the  unskilled  work 
of  the  Italians,  and  their  governments  have  protected  the  move- 
ment. This  cannot  be  surprising  to  anyone  who  is  aware  of  the 
backwardness  of  industry  and  the  abundance  of  the  supply  of 
unskilled  laborers,  evidenced,  if  proof  were  needed,  in  the  great 
Austro-Hungarian  transoceanic  migration  of  the  last  decade  or 
two.  Bohemians  in  the  North,  Croats  and  Slavs  in  the  South 
have  gradually  been  coming  to  their  own.  In  some  places  brick 
making  has  been  taken  from  the  Italians,  and  even  their  work  in 
mines  and  the  forests  has  been  regarded  with  growing  disfavor. 
More  and  more,  in  the  central  and  eastern  regions,  Italian  emi- 
gration has  assumed  a character  which  it  holds  neither  in  the 
industrial  countries  of  Europe  nor  in  the  Americas:  it  has  (in 
comparison  with  native  labor  at  least)  been  largely  skilled.2 

1 “ Relazione  sui  servizi,”  etc.,  Boll.  Emig.,  1910,  No.  18,  p.  252;  V.  Lebrecht. 
“ Inchiesta  sulle  condizioni  degli  italiani  nelle  fomaci  di  Croazia-Slavonia,”  Boll. 
Emig.,  1907,  No.  5,  pp.  36-45;  idem,  “I  minorenni  italiani  nella  Croazia,”  Boll. 
Emig.,  1906,  No.  1,  pp.  3-13;  idem,  “Fiume,  la  Croazia,  la  Slavonia  e le  nostre 
colonie  in  quei  paesi,”  Emig.  e Col.,  1903,  i'‘,  pp.  132-141;  R.  della  Valle,  “L’Un- 
gheria  e l’emigrazione  italiana,”  Emig.  e Col.,  1903,  i‘‘,  pp.  125-131;  Chiap,  p.  365; 
G.  De  Visart  and  F.  R.  Di  Villanova,  reports  in  Emig.  e Col.,  1893,  pp.  67-81. 

2 Not  less  than  90  per  cent  of  the  winter  population  of  Italian  men  aged  20-60 
could  both  read  and  write;  and  more  than  95  per  cent  of  those  20-40  (Ergebnisse 
der  Volkszahlung,  ii,  Pt.  ii,  p.  26*).  In  Italy  such  figures  reflect  superior  quality. 
Among  occupied  Italians,  28  per  cent  were  independent,  46  per  cent  were  a sub- 
stantial grade  of  wage  earner;  11  per  cent  were  day  laborers;  also,  5 per  cent  — 
children  ? — assisted  others  of  their  families  (ibid.,  p.  28). 

The  presence  of  skilled  laborers  is  old.  Mantegazza  relates  (op.  cit.,  p.  122)  how 
in  Bosnia,  years  ago,  the  government,  in  order  to  finish  a railroad  betimes,  by 
employing  superior  laborers  — miners,  masons,  stonecutters  — gave  preference  to 


A U STRIA-HUNG  ARY 


199 


Much  more  than  in  any  other  great  country  of  Europe,  there 
has  been  active  political  and  racial  depreciation  of  the  immigrants, 
but  before  1914  at  least,  their  freedom  of  movement  was  not  im- 
peded. It  is  impossible  to  say  how  far  the  grounds  of  the  hostility 
of  native  labor  have  been  economic  and  how  far  political  or  racial. 
The  Slavs  of  Triest  have  sometimes  laid  violent  hands  on  Italian 
laborers,  but  the  German  workmen  of  the  Tyrol  and  Vorarlberg 
are  held  not  to  have  molested  them.  The  Italians,  for  their  part, 
large  as  their  economic  role  has  been  in  the  past,  have  shown  little 
tendency  (when  their  numbers  are  considered)  to  let  themselves 
be  absorbed.  Yet  it  is  not  an  inappreciable  number  who  have 
become  naturalized:  in  Austria,  we  have  seen,  about  one  a day  on 
the  average,  and  in  Hungary,  in  recent  years,  more  than  of  any 
other  people  save  the  Austrians.1  Intermarriage  with  native 
peoples  has  been  uncommon,  except  in  the  places  where  the  older 
stock  has  spoken  the  Italian  language. 

Coming  chiefly  for  an  economic  end,  the  Italians  have  met  only 
partial  success.  Long  before  the  war,  the  quite  unskilled  laborers, 
having  deemed  the  venture  unprofitable,  had  ceased  to  come  (ex- 
cept, to  a slight  extent,  in  the  western  salient  of  the  country). 
About  1900,  unskilled  men  received  only  two  or  two  and  a half 
crowns  a day,  a wage  not  worth  going  far  to  get;  years  before,  it 
had  been  higher.  About  the  same  time  bricklayers  secured  three 
to  three  and  a half  crowns.  Subsequently  rates  rose,  and  by  1912 
or  1913  unskilled  men  secured  three  and  a half  crowns,  masons 
around  five  crowns,  stonecutters  the  same*  skilled  miners  a little 
more.  In  the  same  period,  swelling  costs  of  food  and  lodging, 
almost  general  in  Europe,  reduced  the  margins  of  saving.  Near 
the  beginning  of  the  century,  it  was  reported  that  workmen  who 
lived  together  could  put  by  half  their  earnings,  but  whenever 
entire  families  were  present,  accumulation  was  impossible.  More 
recently  men  have  been  able  to  save  only  if  rigid  economy  has 
steered  their  expenditures.  The  agricultural  immigrants  of 

a thousand  Italians  over  the  thousands  of  Croatian  laborers  who  had  come  into 
the  region;  this,  despite  the  fact  that  the  Italians,  partly  on  traditional  account, 
were  bitter  enemies. 

1 Annuaire  statistique  hongrois,  1911  (Budapest,  1913),  p.  70. 


200 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


Croatia  and  Slavonia  have  done  fairly  well,  many  having  become 
proprietors  after  first  leasing  their  lands  or  working  for  hire. 
With  25-35  crowns  a month,  in  addition  to  food  and  lodging, 
numerous  boys  of  the  brick  ovens  were  probably  better  off  as  to 
income  than  they  had  been  in  Italy;  but  their  work  of  preparing 
the  clay,  carrying  bricks,  and  similar  tasks  ran  from  four  in  the 
morning  till  half  past  eight  in  the  evening.  The  farm  workers  of 
the  Trentino  have  been  paid  at  rates  current  in  North  Italy:  the 
youngest  children,  25-45  crowns  for  more  than  seven  months  of 
labor;  those  of  fifteen  years,  about  100  crowns;  the  older  girls, 
140-200  crowns  — boys  and  adults  (chiefly  women)  a little 
more;  all  have  received  food  and  lodging  in  addition  and  many 
have  been  able  to  save  150-200  lire  in  the  season.  Lastly,  the 
Chioggia  fishermen,  in  the  course  of  a year  of  contest  with  the  sea, 
could  take  to  their  families  a gain  of  500  fire.1 

This  is  no  taste  of  Eldorado.  Moreover,  I have  drawn  only  the 
better  side  of  the  picture.  There  is  a darker  side  which  it  would  be 
dishonest  not  to  sketch.  The  “ dolorous  spectacle  ” of  those  who 
fail  to  get  work  in  the  agriculture  of  the  Trentino,  the  “ misery  ” 
of  those  engulfed  in  the  flood  of  immigrants  returning  unemployed 
from  Germany  or  the  United  States,  these  are  samples  of  con- 
ditions that  stand  forth  prominently  in  the  consuls’  reports. 
There  are  those  who  come  too  early,  those  who  overstay  the  fall 
and  suffer  in  the  winter.  There  are  the  many  caught  in  the  more 
general  depressions.  Unemployment  worries  when  it  does  not 
destroy:  it  is  an  ambushed  ogre  which  threatens  to  consume  in 
days  what  has  been  treasured  together  in  weeks.2 

1 De  Lucchi,  pp.  10-12,  31;  Jarach,  pp.  62-64,  82;  Giacchi,  “ La  colonia  itali- 
ana,”  etc.,  p.  7;  Umilta,  p.  36;  Lebrecht,  “ I minorenni,”  etc.,  pp.  4,  6;  idem. 
“ Fiume,  la  Croazia,”  etc.,  p.  137;  Zannoni,  pp.  98-101;  Lambertenghi,  pp.  107  f.; 
Baroli,  pp.  113  f. 

2 On  the  pressure  of  unemployment,  see,  e.g.,  in  Boll.  Emig.:  1913,  No.  14,  p.  45; 
1912,  No.  12,  p.  55;  1909,  No.  9,  p.  115;  1908,  No.  7,  p.  101;  1907,  No.  5,  pp.  24. 
27;  1906,  No.  s,  pp.  73  i.;  1903,  No.  10,  p.  60;  1902,  No.  4,  p.  72;  1902,  No.  6, 
p.  65;  1902,  No.  8,  p.  76.  Cf.  Emig.  e Col.,  iH,  pp.  98,  107,  113. 

The  European  war  brought  new  troubles.  Payments  of  20,000  lire  a month  due, 
on  account  of  continuing  pensions  for  accidents,  to  800  Italians  returned  to  Italy, 
were  stopped.  See  “ La  sospensione  del  pagamento  delle  rendite  alle  vittime  di 
infortunio  in  Austria-Ungheria,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1916,  No.  5,  pp.  16-18. 


A V STRIA-HUNG ARY 


201 


But  there  are  other  disabilities  also.  The  children  have  suffered 
in  various  ways.  Some  who  would  fall  within  the  jurisdiction  of 
compulsory  schooling  in  North  Italy  have  here  been  engaged  in 
heavy  work,  and  many,  especially  of  the  girls,  have  been  hurt  in 
health.  Repeatedly  illiterate  boys  and  men  have  been  victimized 
through  the  contracts  they  have  signed  for  labor  in  the  brick 
ovens.  In  these  works  boys  have  usually  slept  on  bags  of  straw, 
often  with  insufficient  night  covering.  In  the  Trentino  sleeping 
out  of  doors  has  been  a common  practice.  When  food  has  not  been 
part  of  the  compensation  for  labor,  when  the  motives  of  hunger 
and  frugality  have  contended,  then  nourishment  has  often  proved 
insufficient.1  The  moral  situation  has  given  cause  for  concern. 
Though  abolition  of  the  night  market  of  the  “ ciode  ” improved 
the  condition  of  the  girls  in  the  Trentino,  other  abuses  have  con- 
tinued because  these  workers  have  been  scattered  over  the 
country  districts  and  subjected  in  their  tasks  to  the  command  of 
men.  Fewer  women  have  in  recent  years  worked  in  the  garrison 
towns,  it  is  claimed,  and  in  so  far  one  difficulty  has  been  lessened. 
Finally,  an  increase  of  alcoholic  drinking  has  been  noted,  here  as 
elsewhere.2 

Has  the  work  of  the  Italians  in  the  Austro-Hungarian  states 
run  its  course  ? Is  their  mission  completed  ? Anyone  may  see 
that  their  immigration  had  for  some  years  drifted  into  a preca- 
rious position.  Living  conditions  had  not  improved  in  the  years 
before  the  war;  industrially,  a fresh  increment,  or  a moderniza- 
tion, of  skill  in  the  native  peoples  had  become  more  and  more 
probable.  Circumstances  have  for  years  been  ripening  which, 
even  if  no  war  had  come,  would  presently  have  placed  Austria- 
Hungary  and  Italy  in  the  same  category  as  regards  migration: 

1 Discussing  a decade’s  rise  in  living  costs,  De  Lucchi  wrote  (op.  tit.,  p.  12): 
“ In  this  connection,  the  interests  of  our  poor  workmen  are  much  hurt  by  the  fact 
that,  now  more  than  in  the  past,  the  police  do  not  tolerate  excessive  crowding  of 
sleepers  in  one  apartment,  and  also  by  the  fact  that  the  modernizing  of  the  principal 
centers  has  brought  with  it,  especially  on  the  periphery,  the  demolition  of  a quantity 
of  old  houses  in  which  our  compatriots  used  to  secure  reasonable  lodging.”  See 
also  ibid.,  pp.  32  f.;  Jarach,  pp.  75,  82,  84;  I.ebrecht,  “ Inchiesta  sulle  condizioni,” 
pp.  36-45;  idem,  “ I minorenni  italiani,”  p.  5. 

2 De  Lucchi,  pp.  36-38,  46;  Dominioni,  p.  35;  Baroli,  p.  114. 


202 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


countries  whence  workers  depart  but  to  which  they  refrain  from 
coming.  Then  the  Italian  emigration  across  the  Adriatic,  modern 
successor  of  the  old  commercial  movement  from  Venice,  might 
have  been  expected  to  shrink  to  comparative  insignificance. 
Who  now  can  say,  contemplating  the  non-Italian  parts  of  the  old 
dual  monarchy,  what  the  maelstrom  of  the  after-war  time  ■will 
bring  forth  ? 


CHAPTER  XII 


OTHER  COUNTRIES  OF  EUROPE.  NORTH  AFRICA 

Italian  immigration  into  Great  Britain  has  had  a long  and 
peculiar,  if  never  a broad,  development.  In  the  Middle  Ages, 
especially  in  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries,  Lucchese, 
Lombards,  and  Florentines  settled  in  England.  Of  their  eminence 
then  as  wool  merchants  there  has  never  been  question,  and  their 
bankers  have  had  a perpetual  memorial  in  the  name  of  Lombard 
Street.  In  the  same  early  period,  Italians  came  to  Dublin.  In 
the  seventeenth  century,  a new  movement  started,  which  at- 
tained considerable  volume  in  the  eighteenth,  and  soon  the  types 
appeared  which  we  associate  with  the  modern  era. 

Itinerant  chimney  sweeps  of  tender  years,  exploited  by  older 
men,  were  the  first  modern  immigrants.  In  no  other  country,  be 
it  said,  for  so  long  a stretch  of  time,  have  the  Italians  so  generally 
been  circumambulant  in  their  trades.  By  1750  certainly,  the 
organ  grinders  had  begun  to  come.  Before  1800  monkeys  had 
become  the  street  musicians’  adjuncts,  and  soon  birds  and  bears 
were  exhibited.  Contrasting  with  the  old  barrel  organ  were,  pres- 
ently, the  concertina,  accordion,  harp,  and  violin.  For  a full 
century  and  a half,  the  street  musicians  lent  color  to  this  immigra- 
tion, hundreds  at  a time  circulating  through  the  country  (not 
fewer  than  2500  were  computed  by  de’  Calboli  in  1893);  and  the 
sufferings  of  the  boy  victims  of  the  traffic  were  beyond  all  question 
great.1 

Street  hawkers  have  been  many,  a notable  genre  in  London. 
Men  and  children  have  sold  chestnuts  in  the  winter  and  ices  in  the 
summer.  In  ramshackle  dwellings  on  Saffron  Hill,  living  crowded 

1 “ Give  something  to  the  pretty  little  Italian  child  who  comes  from  the  sunny 
South,  and  is  so  poor,  and  yet  sings  happily  all  the  day.”  This  characteristic  legend 
under  a picture  of  an  amiable  organ  grinder  and  his  alms-asking  child  appeared  in 
a paper  for  children’s  reading.  See  W.  H.  Wilkins,  in  A.  White  (ed.),  The  Destitute 
Alien  in  Great  Britain  (London,  1892),  p.  166. 


203 


204 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


together  in  dirt,  they  concocted  their  wares  for  many  years. 
First,  the  Italian  law  of  1873  touching  the  employment  of  chil- 
dren, abroad  as  at  home,  compelled  some  improvement  in  their 
condition;  later,  the  school  board  inspectors  interfered  with 
some  of  their  practices,  and  finally  the  sanitation  authorities 
demolished  the  hovels  where  they  dwelt,  scattering  the  colony 
afar.  None  the  less,  the  census  of  1911  counted  nearly  1300 
costermongers  and  their  like.  Though  a few  ice  cream  vendors 
have  prospered  in  Ireland  and  in  Wales  (Italians  have  led  all  other 
foreign  immigrants  into  Wales!)  it  is  to  Scotland  that  one  must 
turn  for  a remarkable  development.  Some  half  a century  ago, 
nomad  Italians,  including  Lucchese  sellers  of  statuettes,  opened 
shops  there  for  the  sale  of  ice  cream.  Having  awakened  a new 
desire  in  the  country,  they  prospered,  and  attracted  others  to 
share  their  fortune.  An  estimate  in  1911,  interesting  even  if 
deductions  are  made,  declared  that  a thousand  shops  existed  in 
some  two  hundred  places  in  all  of  Scotland,  especially  the  Clyde 
and  Forth  districts.  They  sold  drinks,  candy,  bovril.  as  well  as 
ice  cream,  finding  their  mainstay  in  evening  and  holiday  business. 
Opposition  developing  after  a while,  the  immigrants  organized  a 
“ Temperance  Refreshment  Traders’  Defence  Association  ” and 
800  signed  a futile  petition  to  Sig.  San  Giuliano  asking  for  inter- 
vention against  projected  evening  and  holiday  closing  ordinances. 

In  England,  and  especially  in  London,  in  recent  years,  men  and 
women  variously  concerned  with  the  provision  of  food  and  lodging 
have  been  a great  majority  of  the  Italians.  In  1911,  to  name  but 
the  leading  groups,  1200  were  in  domestic  service;  nearly  900  men 
were  cooks  not  in  domestic  employment;  1400  were  bakers  and 
confectioners;  500  kept  coffee  or  eating  houses;  1600  were 
waiters  in  restaurants,  and  a thousand  were  otherwise  employed 
by  inns  and  hotels.  Needless  to  say,  these  deft  and  polite  workers 
had  usually  come  from  North  Italy.  And  it  was  their  coming, 
more  than  any  other,  that  brought  about  the  doubling  of  the 
Italian  population  of  England  in  the  period  1890-1901. 

Both  common  laborers  and  skilled  artisans  have  been  few. 
Long  ago,  it  is  said,  some  helped  to  build  the  bridge  over  the  Firth 
of  Forth,  but  the  episode  has  not  been  representative.  It  used  to 


OTHER  COUNTRIES  OF  EUROPE 


205 


be  reiterated  in  Italian  reports  that  the  exclusionist  spirit  and 
rules  of  the  English  trade  unions  made  all  craftsmen  unwelcome. 
To  a degree  the  charge  was  valid,  and  disapproval,  rather  than 
satisfaction  and  the  enjoyment  of  the  picturesque,  has  surely 
been  the  common  note  in  English  utterances.  Italian  commen- 
tators have  agreed  that  most  of  their  compatriots  have  saved 
only  by  privation,  and  they  have  put  an  unmistakable  emphasis 
upon  the  disabilities  of  immigrant  life  in  England.  The  wonder 
is  indeed  that  more  than  20,000  Italians  were  counted  when  the 
census  of  1911  was  taken.1 

In  recent  years  before  the  war,  the  diminutive  grand  duchy  of 
Luxemburg  must  have  contained  an  average  of  fully  10,000  Ital- 
ians. Bordering  on  French  and  German  Lorraine  and  Rhenish 
Prussia,  it  has  presented  industrial  opportunities  akin  to  those  of 
its  neighbors.  Before  1890  few  Italians  came.  In  1900,  7500  were 
enumerated,  of  whom  a large  majority  dwelt  at  Esch-sur-Alzette, 
near  the  French  frontier,  where  they  easily  created  the  illusion  of 
an  Italian  town.  In  the  winter  of  1905-06,  more  than  5000  men 
were  occupied  in  the  iron  mines  at  Dudelange,  Differdange,  and 
other  places.  The  annual  fluctuations  in  this  immigration  have 
been  great  and  its  vicissitudes  many.  But  the  labor  market  of 
Luxemburg  is  so  much  a part  of  that  of  the  adjacent  regions,  and 

1 F.  Catalani,  “ Fanciulli  italiani  in  Inghilterra,”  Nuova  Antologia,  February, 
1878,  pp.  559-586;  Wilkins,  chapter  on  “The  Italian  Aspect”  (cit.) ; idem,  The 
Alien  Invasion  (London,  1892),  esp.  ch.  iv;  R.  Paulucci  de’  Calboli,  I girovaghi 
italiani  in  Inghilterra  ed  i suonatori  ambulanti,  Citta  di  Castello,  1893;  G.  Tornielli- 
Brusati  di  Vergano  and  E.  B.  Heath,  Emig.  e Col.,  1893,  pp.  288-313;  G. 
Prato,  “ Gli  italiani  in  Inghilterra,”  Riforma  Sociale,  July,  1900,  pp.  674-703,  No- 
vember, 1900,  pp.  1095-1116,  January,  1901,  pp.  5-35;  G.  Dalla  Vecchia,  “Gli 
italiani  a Londra,”  LTtalia  Coloniale,  January,  1901,  pp.  65-79;  F.  Righetti  and 
F.  Sacchi,  “ La  colonia  italiana  di  Londra,”  Emig.  e Col.,  1903,  ii!,  pp.  143-169; 
P.  Bainotti  and  V.  A.  Montaldi,  “ Gli  italiani  nel  distretto  consolare  di  Liverpool,” 
Emig.  e Col.,  i“,  pp.  170-182;  G.  Poma,  “ Gli  italiani  nel  distretto  consolare  di 
Cardiff,”  Emig.  e Col.,  ii!,  pp.  183-189;  G.  Breen,  “ Le  colonie  italiane  in  Scozia,” 
Emig.  e Col.,  i",  pp.  190-192;  C.  Sardi,  “ I gelatieri  italiani  nella  Scozia,”  Rivista 
Coloniale,  August  25-September  10,  1911,  pp.  284-292;  Great  Britain,  Census  of 
England  and  Wales,  April  3,  191  r,  ix;  L.  Salazar,  “ Gli  italiani  in  Irlanda,”  Rivista 
Coloniale,  July  10,  1912,  pp.  r 5— r 7 ; E.  Pepin,  La  question  des  etrangers  en  Angleterre, 
L’ Aliens  Act  de  1905,  Paris,  1913;  V.  A.  Tattara,  “ L’emigrazione  italiana  nel 
Regno  Unito  e nel  Principato  di  Galles  durante  l’anno  1913,”  Boll.  Emig.,  r9i4, 
No.  9,  pp.  57-59. 


206 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


what  I have  written  concerning  those  regions  holds  so  broadly 
here,  that  detail  is  unnecessary.1 

The  Italians  in  Belgium  have  been  circumstanced  much  as 
those  in  Luxemburg,  but  they  have  been  less  than  half  as  numer- 
ous. In  addition  to  working  in  the  mines,  they  have  been  retail 
dealers,  glove  makers,  sellers  of  ices  and  statuettes,  and  street 
musicians.2 

Since  as  long  ago  as  1870.  a not  unimportant  emigration  has 
proceeded  to  the  Iberian  Peninsula.  It  has  most  usually  been  a 
miscellaneous  assortment  of  street  traders,  port  workers,  fisher- 
men. In  an  ordinary  year,  apart  from  an  interesting  colony  in 
Barcelona,  those  present  in  either  Spain  or  Portugal  have  num- 
bered only  hundreds;  but  special  occasions,  like  the  comprehen- 
sive harbor  work  of  Lisbon  in  1888-89,  have  induced  the  coming 
of  many  more.3 

Malta,  for  centuries  in  commercial  relationship  with  Italy, 
especially  Sicily,  has  become  the  home,  more  or  less  permanent, 
of  some  2000  Italians.  Most  are  Sicilians.  Strangely  enough  — 
for  the  instance  is  unique  — the  colony  is  almost  wholly  urban, 
embracing  especially  such  types  as  shoemakers  and  barbers.4 

In  eastern  Europe  the  Italians  have  had  a curious  and  scat- 
tered, yet  far  from  unimportant  history. 

Few  have  settled  in  Montenegro  or  Albania,  the  regions  most 
easily  reached  by  sea.  A colony  of  Apulians  has  been  in  Avlona. 

1 Some  references  already  given  on  western  Germany  include  frequent  mention 
of  Luxemburg.  See  also  G.  Weber,  “ II  granducato  di  Lussemburgo  e rimmigra- 
zione  italiana,”  Emig.  e Col.,  1905,  iii!,  pp.  1 17-123;  note  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1906, 
No.  12,  p.  63;  “ Relazione  sui  servizi  . . . 1909-10,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1910,  No.  iS, 
pp.  262  f.;  note  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1916,  No.  5,  p.  60. 

2 L.  B.  Longare,  A.  Gillin  de  Robaulx,  and  A.  Villa,  “ La  immigrazione  italiana 
nel  Belgio,”  Emig.  e Col.,  1903,  im,  pp.  1 24-130.  Cf.  a report  on  Holland:  S.  Tugini, 
E.  van  Dam,  and  G.  Hudig,  “ Gli  italiani  in  Olanda,”  Emig.  e Col.,  1905,  i'",  pp.  131- 
136. 

3 Carpi,  ii,  sundry  passages;  R.  De  Souza  Monteiro,  report  on  Portugal,  Emig. 
e Col.,  1893,  pp.  401  f.;  idem,  “ II  Portogallo  e colonia  italiana,”  Emig.  e Col.,  1903, 
i",  pp.  215-223;  A.  di  Collobiano,  “ L’immigrazione  italiana  nel  mezzogiomo  della 
Spagna,”  Emig.  e Col.,  i",  pp.  197-208;  Relazione  sui  servizi,”  etc.,  pp.  264!.; 
A.  Bignotti,  Gli  italiani  in  Barcelona , Barcelona,  1910. 

4 P.  Grande,  “ Le  isole  di  Malta  e Gozzo  e la  colonia  italiana,”  Emig.  c Col., 
1903,  i",  pp.  227-233. 


OTHER  COUNTRIES  OF  EUROPE 


207 


Farther  inland,  in  the  old  Sanjak  of  Berat,  some  hundreds  of  Ital- 
ians once  had  work,  chiefly  in  the  bitumen  industry.  Albania  is 
one  of  those  Balkan  regions  — the  case  of  Hungary  may  be  com- 
pared— in  which  Italians  have  made  agricultural  settlements; 
but  here  their  projects  failed.1 

Many  thousands  have  gone  to  Greece.  As  far  back  as  1848- 
49,  during  the  revolution  in  the  Kingdom  of  the  two  Sicilies, 
Apulians  settled  in  Patras.  In  quieter  times,  the  better-to-do  of 
these  returned  to  Italy;  the  rest  remained  as  the  nucleus  of  a 
growing  colony  of  seamen,  agriculturists,  and  general  workers. 
Construction  of  the  port  of  Patras  and  of  the  Peloponnesian  rail- 
ways attracted  still  more  immigrants,  and  after  1900,  the  Patras 
colony  was  claimed,  possibly  with  exaggeration,  to  reach  7000 
persons,  by  all  odds  the  chief  community  of  Italians  in  Greece. 
Other  considerable  groups  were  at  Athens,  about  Laurium,  in 
Corfu,  and  at  Salonica.  During  the  Italo-Turkish  war,  many 
came  to  Greece  from  Turkey. 

Although  the  Italians  of  Greece  have  in  many  places  become 
less  numerous  in  recent  years,  yet  their  past  accomplishment  is 
clear.  Many  were  occupied  in  building  the  railways  of  Thessaly 
and  Attica  — for  example,  the  line  to  Salonica  — in  constructing 
the  Corinth  Canal  and  the  port  of  Calamata,  and  in  draining  Lake 
Copais.  In  the  lead  and  manganese  mines  of  Laurium,  skilled 
miners  were  engaged,  where  once,  in  an  early  time,  slaves  in  chain 
gangs  spent  their  strength  for  Athens.  Apulian  fishermen,  leaving 
their  families  for  months-long  voyages,  have  supplied  almost  the 
whole  market  of  Patras  with  their  catch  and  much  else  of  Greece 
besides.  Long  ago,  Apulian  cultivators,  now  a considerable 
group,  began  to  improve  the  swampy  areas  about  Patras  and 
introduced  higher  standards  of  agricultural  production.  The 
descendants  of  the  older  immigrant  stocks  abound,  but  in  many 
places,  especially  at  Salonica,  have  lost  much  of  their  Italian 
character. 

1 E.  C.  Cagli,  “ L’opera  degli  italiani  nel  Montenegro,”  Nuova  Antologia, 
September  1, 1910,  pp.  51-73;  B.  Bollati,  “ La  colonia  italiana  nel  Montenegro,” 
Emig.  e Col.,  1905,1'",  pp.  259-262;  G.  Millelire  and  A.  Ancarano,  “Gli  italiani  nel 
vilayet  di  Janina,”  Emig.  e Col.,  1905,  i”‘,  pp.  363-366;  Mantegazza,  pp.  358-360. 


208 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


This  immigration  has  been  far  from  uniformly  successful. 
Fever,  unpaid  wages  (or  wages  that  shrivelled  when  traded  for 
Italian  gold),  and  unemployment  have  caused  much  distress  and 
have  made  saving  difficult  for  a man  alone  and  impossible  for  one 
with  a family.  Large  numbers  of  Italians  were  impelled  to  flee  the 
country  by  the  events  associated  with  the  Allied  intervention  in 
the  fall  of  1916.  If  few  should  return,  and  the  emigration  into 
Greece  should  lapse  henceforth,  it  could  surprise  no  one.1 

Into  Serbia,  in  the  epoch  of  the  construction  of  the  Eastern 
railway,  thousands  of  Italians  came.  But  that  work  reached  its 
end  in  1888,  and  later  years  were  chary  of  opportunities.  Vene- 
tians who  came  for  building  may  point  to  the  military  hospital  at 
Gornia  Milanovac  as  partly  the  fruit  of  their  exertions.2 

The  forty  Italians  who  in  1865  went  into  Bulgaria  to  work  on 
the  nearly  completed  Rustchuk-Varna  railway  were  the  heralds 
of  successive  regiments  that  came  on  similar  missions  during  the 
next  half  century.  English  masters  gave  way  to  Turkish,  Turkish 
to  Bulgarian,  but  Italians  were  absent  from  probably  not  one 
notable  engineering  enterprise.  Contractors  and  subcontractors, 
as  well  as  wrorkmen,  on  railways  and  allied  undertakings,  were 
often  Italian.  It  was  about  1896-97  that  the  largest  numbers 
were  employed.  After  that,  the  competition  of  the  Macedonian 
workers  became  more  marked,  and  disappointments  in  employ- 
ment or  remuneration  became  increasingly  frequent,  to  such 

1 Reports  by  A.  De  Goyzueta  di  Toverena,  V.  Thaon  di  Revel,  and  V.  Finzi  in 
Emig.  e Col.,  1893,  pp.  357-364,  518-520;  note  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1903,  No.  6,  p.  113; 
E.  Bonelli  and  S.  L.  Rocca,  “ II  distretto  consolare  del  Pireo  e la  immigrazione  itali- 
ana,”  Emig.  e Col.,  1905,  iHi,  pp.  265-278;  E.  De  Gubematis,  “ La  immigrazione 
e le  colonie  italiane  nelle  isole  Jonie,”  Emig.  e Col.,  i"',  pp.  279-292;  L.  Corinaldi, 
“ Statistica  della  popolazione  italiana  nella  Turchia  europea,”  Emig.  e Col.,  ii!i, 
pp.  300-308;  V.  Thaon  di  Revel,  “ La  immigrazione  italiana  in  Macedonia,”  Emig. 
e Col.,  ii!i,  pp.  341-356;  F.  Beauregard,  “ La  colonia  italiana  di  Patrasso,”  Boll. 
Emig.,  1915,  No.  4,  pp.  3— x 1 ; note,  “Immigrazione  italiana  in  Grecia,”  Boll.  Emig., 
1916,  No.  7,  p.  86;  newspapers,  December  11,  19T6. 

2 E.  Mayor  des  Planches,  “ La  Serbia  e l'immigrazione  italiana,”  Emig.  e Col., 
1905,  ii!i,  pp.  236-251;  G.  E.  Di  Palma  di  Castiglione,  “ I/oriente  d'Europa  quale 
mercato  per  la  mano  d’opera  italiana,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1912,  No.  n,  pp.  119-142; 
E.  Vaina,  “ Gli  interessi  italiani  e la  Serbia,”  Vila  Ilaliana  all’  Estero,  January  15, 
1915,  pp.  13-29. 


OTHER  COUNTRIES  OF  EUROPE  2QC) 

effect  that  in  recent  years  the  Italians  present  have  not  much  ex- 
ceeded a thousand,  mostly  artisans  and  small  traders.1 

At  least  as  important  as  this  immigration,  though  somewhat 
different  in  kind,  has  been  that  into  Rumania.  On  the  public 
works  undertaken  in  the  years  after  the  new  state  came  to  power, 
Italians  played  an  important  part.  In  numbers  they  labored  at 
the  prolonged  construction  and  improvement  of  the  port  of  Con- 
stanza  and  the  building  of  the  great  Cernavoda  bridge  across  the 
Danube.  The  canal  of  Campolungh,  the  railway  lines  (among 
others)  of  Craiova-Calafet  and  Barlad-Galatz,  the  tunnel  at 
Beresti,  employed  many.  Building  workmen,  always  prominent 
in  this  immigration,  contributed,  for  example,  to  the  erection  of 
the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  the  Fine  Arts  Museum,  and  the  Cham- 
ber of  Commerce  edifice  of  Bucarest.  In  the  Dobrudja,  many 
have  been  granite  cutters.  Lumbermen,  with  Rumanians  in  sub- 
ordinate places,  have  been  numerous  about  Buzeu  and  in  Mol- 
davia, but  have  gradually  lost  ground  to  the  native  people.  Near 
Cataloi  has  been  a considerable  agricultural  colony. 

About  1900,  the  Italians  numbered  easily  5000.  Thereafter  a 
decline  set  in,  the  annual  temporary  immigration  — composed  of 
men  who  year  after  year,  often  from  childhood  on,  went  into 
Rumania  — especially  lessening;  and  when  the  war  of  1914  broke 
upon  Europe,  not  many  who  still  counted  Italy  as  their  home 
were  left.  The  riches  of  the  country  being  first  of  all  agricultural, 
it  is  in  the  periods  after  good  harvests  that  the  immigrants  have 
been  wont  to  arrive.  Repeated  disappointment  in  the  newer 
competitive  conditions  has  thinned  the  annual  influx,  which  had 
been  greater  than  that  into  any  other  Balkan  state.2 

1 Report  on  Bulgaria  by  A.  Scaniglia  in  Etnig.  e Col.,  1893,  pp.  553-560;  G. 
Silvestrelli,  “ La  Bulgaria  e l’immigrazione  italiana,”  Emig.  e Col.,  1905,  iiH,  pp.  206- 
223;  G.  Giacchi,  “ La  Rumelia  orientale  e le  sue  colonie  italiane,”  Emig.  e Col.,  iHi, 
pp.  224-235;  “Relazione  sui  servizi,”  etc.,  pp.  254  f.;  Palma  di  Castiglione,  pp.  85- 
107;  C.  A.  Vaccaro,  “Gli  italiani  in  Bulgaria,”  Rivista  Coloniale,  October  25- 
November  10,  1911,  pp.  386-389. 

2 G.  Tesi,  report  in  Emig.  e Col.,  1893,  pp.  406-409;  E.  Incisa  di  Beccaria  and 
F.  Pappalepore,  “ La  Rumania  e la  immigrazione  italiana,”  Emig.  e Col.,  1905, 
iii;,  pp.  187-205;  Palma  di  Castiglione,  pp.  7-79;  note  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1916,  No.  5, 
pp.  59  f. 


210 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


Even  Russia  has  harbored  the  immigrants.  Only  one  of  the 
colonies  of  the  great  cities,  though  today  it  is  chiefly  a memory, 
requires  mention.  Odessa,  four  or  five  decades  ago,  contained  a 
large  collectivity  of  Italians  who  held  a leading  position  in  the 
grain  trade.  Even  the  culture  of  the  city  was  partly  theirs.  When 
presently  the  great  growth  of  its  population  set  in,  the  Italian 
colony  was  submerged.  In  the  mines  of  Ekaterinoslaw.  many 
immigrants  have  been  employed.  Marble  workers  have  found 
occupation  about  Kiev.  Into  Caucasia,  immigration  began  about 
the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century.  In  the  eighties,  Italians 
worked  on  the  Tiflis-Baku,  the  Samtredi-Batum,  and  other  im- 
portant railways;  300  helped  construct  the  Suram  tunnel.  At 
Tiflis,  Baku,  Batum,  and  Ekaterinodar  they  have  engaged  in 
marble  working.  Near  Kislovodsk,  province  of  Terek,  there  has 
been  an  Italian  viticultural  colony  which  has  weathered  the  trials 
of  earlier  days.  Even  into  the  Caucasus  have  come  troops  of 
wandering  musicians.1 

Turkey,  while  it  still  extended  across  the  Balkan  Peninsula, 
contained  nearly  30,000  Italians,  of  whom  two  in  every  three  were 
in  Europe.  When  the  Balkan  wars  detached  Salonica  — next  to 
Constantinople  the  leading  center  for  Italians  — more  than  3000 
found  themselves  suddenly  in  Greece.  Nearly  all  the  rest  were  in 
Constantinople  (about  10.000)  and  on  a belt  of  land  along  the 
Mediterranean.  Since  the  days  of  Byzantium,  there  had  been  a 
continuous  history  for  some  among  these  groups,  and  even  today 
a few  descendants  of  the  old  Venetian  and  Genoese  families  are 
to  be  distinguished.  The  great  majority  trace  their  immigration 
to  the  period  of  the  eighties.  In  1885  an  Italian  chamber  of  com- 
merce was  established,  which,  despite  the  prosperity  of  some  of 
the  earlier  comers,  has  run  but  an  uneven  course. 

1 Reports  by  T.  Carletti  and  E.  Perrod  in  Emig.  e Col.,  1893,  pp.  410-418;  S. 
Minocchi,  “ Gli  Italiani  nel  Caucaso,  in  Siberia  e in  Manciuria,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1905, 
No.  6,  pp.  7-1 1 ; A.  Ghersi,  M.  D.  Epstein,  “ Le  colonie  italiane  in  Russia,”  Emig. 
e Col.,  1905,  iin,  pp.  159-165;  E.  Spagnoli,  “ II  Caucaso  e l’emigrazione  italiana,” 
Emig.  e Col.,  i*",  pp.  167-170;  N.  Squitti,  “ Le  colonie  italiane  nel  distretto  con- 
solare  di  Odessa,”  Emig.  e Col.,  i'”,  pp.  171-184;  note,  “Gli  emigrati  italiani  nel 
Caucaso,”  Vita  Italiana  all’  Estero,  October,  1913,  pp.  300  {.;  B.  Ischchanian,  Die 
auslandischen  Elemenie  in  der  russischen  Volkswirtschaft  (Berlin,  1913),  esp.  ch.  is. 


OTHER  COUNTRIES  OF  EUROPE 


21 1 


Those  in  trade  have  been  fewer  than  those  in  general  building 
and  the  construction  of  railways,  ports,  quais,  aqueducts,  and  the 
like.  Skilled  artisans  worked  on  the  Yldiz-Kiosque,  the  Sultan’s 
residence.  In  Adrianople,  the  bridges  and  best  buildings  were 
largely  due  to  the  immigrants.  In  Smyrna  the  old  Genoese  patri- 
cian stock  is  still  represented,  no  longer  pure,  yet  alive  to  its 
traditions  and  retaining  the  Roman  Catholic  religion;  but  the 
Italian  influence  here,  whether  of  old  or  new  stocks,  is  less  than  the 
French  and  the  Greek.  A notable  Asiatic  center  for  construction 
work  is  the  vilayet  of  Kastamuni.  The  coal  mines  of  Zonguldak 
and  the  Anatolian  railways  have  employed  many  Italians.  In 
1903  contractors  and  various  grades  of  laborers  began  to  work  on 
the  Bagdad  railway,  some  staying  several  years.  Many  also 
worked  on  the  construction  of  the  Damascus-Mecca  line.  Fisher- 
men from  Apulia  and  Chioggia,  finally,  have  brought  their  craft 
even  into  these  distant  Mediterranean  waters  and  made  a frugal 
living. 

Of  the  mass  of  the  Italians  in  Turkey,  exception  being  made  of 
some  traders,  bankers,  and  artists,  it  may  be  said  that,  while  their 
conditions  have  not  been  bad  neither  have  they  been  good.  Ital- 
ian citizenship,  because  of  its  legal  advantages,  has  been  kept 
long  after  all  semblance  of  patriotic  sentiment  has  vanished.  At 
the  time  of  the  Italo-Turkish  war  many  Italians  fled  from  the 
country,  but  most  subsequently  returned.1 

1 P.  Sitta,  “ Gli  italiani  in  Turchia,”  Riforma  Sociale,  May  15, 1897,  pp.  463-475; 
Rikio,  “ La  colonia  italiana  di  Costantinopoli,”  LTtalia  Coloniale,  September,  1901, 
pp.  69-86;  Cosattini  “ L’emigrazione  temporanea  del  Friuli,”  p.  47;  L.  Corinaldi, 
“ Statistica  della  popolazione  italiana  nella  Turchia  europea,”  Emig.  e Col.,  1905, 
ihi,  pp.  300-308;  C.  Aldrovandi  and  C.  Fichet,  “ La  colonia  italiana  nel  distretto 
consolare  di  Costantinopoli,”  Emig.  e Col.,  i"',  pp.  309-340;  A.  Mori,  Gli  italiani  a 
Costantinopoli,  Modena,  1906  (this  ample  volume  includes,  along  with  an  account 
of  the  Italians  of  the  twentieth  century,  an  historical  survey  and  bibliography); 
C.  Poma,  “ Gli  italiani  del  Levante,”  Rivista  Coloniale,  September  25-October  10, 
1911,  pp.  334-337;  “Spectator,”  “ L’opera  della  Commissione  pro-espulsi  dalla 
Turchia,”  Vita  Italiana  all’  Estero,  January,  1913,  pp.  45-49;  G.  Bevione,  L' Asia  Mi- 
nore  e Vltalia  (Turin,  1914),  pp.  70-84,  97-122,  136-151;  G.  Ferretti,  “ Gli  italiani 
a Costantinopoli,”  Nuova  Antologia,  March  16,  1915,  pp.  257-270;  G.  Capra, 
“Gli  operai  italiani  nel  traforo  dell’  Amano  (Ferrovia  di  Costantinopoli-Bagdad),” 
Italica  Gens  (Bollettino) , January-February , 1915,  pp.  40-62;  idem,  “La  coloniz- 
zazione  agraria  in  Siria  e Asia  Minore,”  Italica  Gens,  March-June,  1915,  pp.  65-89; 


212 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


Some  of  the  salient  engineering  enterprises  of  modern  Egypt 
have  received  a characteristic  contribution  from  the  Italians. 
Coming  first  before  1850,  these  immigrants  soon  surpassed  in 
numbers  both  English  and  French.  By  Ismail  they  were  often 
put  into  the  public  service,  especially  sanitation,  where  later,  to 
the  lament  of  Italian  writers,  they  were  replaced  by  the  English. 
It  wras  in  the  same  epoch,  after  the  first  disastrous  experiences  in 
using  forced  labor  for  the  construction  of  the  Suez  Canal,  that 
Italian  workmen  arrived,  numerous  in  an  international  throng. 
Masons,  carpenters,  and  the  like,  they  lent  their  aid  valiantly  in 
this  work  and  had  even  a small  part  in  its  direction.1  In  1871, 
two  years  after  the  canal  was  completed,  the  Italians  in  Cairo 
were  calculated  officially  to  reach  4500  persons;  ten  years  later 
6000  or  more;  in  1897,  nearly  8700;  in  the  early  twentieth  cen- 
tury, 10,000.  Alexandria,  also  long  a center  for  Italians,  had  in 
1897  nearly  12,000,  though  the  census  was  taken  in  May,  when 
many  were  absent.  In  all  of  Egypt,  this  census  showed  24,500 
Italians,  who  were  more  than  a fifth  of  the  foreign  population. 
Only  the  Greeks  — a third  of  all  — were  more  numerous;  the 
English  followed  after  with  19,500.  The  census  of  1907  showed 
35,000,  and  Italian  officials  have  since  claimed  40,000.  Included 
in  all  these  figures  are  the  Levantine  Italians,  chiefly  Jews,  estab- 
lished in  the  country  for  several  generations  and  a strong  group 
financially.  Most  of  the  immigrants  were  born  in  Sicily  and  the 
South  of  Italy. 

In  their  work  in  Egypt,  the  newer  Italians  have  been  true  to 
the  tradition  of  the  canal  makers.  At  Assiut,  in  Upper  Egypt, 
masons  and  stonecutters  helped  to  build  the  barrage  across  the 
Nile,  an  open  weir  over  half  a mile  long.  Four  years  were  con- 
sumed in  this  undertaking,  which  was  completed  in  1902.  At 
about  the  same  time,  a still  greater  work,  the  Assuan  dam,  the 

idem,  “ Adali  nella  storia  e nell’  azione  italiana,”  Italica  Gens,  Januarv-June, 
1916,  pp.  1-38. 

1 For  contemporary  mention  of  the  Italian  role,  see  A.  Mangin,  “ Percement 
de  l’isthme  de  Suez,”  Journal  des  Economistes,  December,  1866,  pp.  448-450;  M. 
P.  Borel  (of  the  chief  contracting  firm),  Conference  faite  d VAthenee  le  2 f eerier  1S67 
stir  les  travaux  d’execution  du  canal  maritime  de  Suez  (Paris,  1867),  p.  37;  M.  Fon- 
taine, Le  canal  maritime  de  Suez  (Paris,  1869),  p.  130. 


NORTH  AFRICA 


213 


chief  gift  of  modern  science  to  Egypt,  was  finished.  The  stone- 
cutters and  others  who  came  to  labor  upon  it  from  North  and 
South  Italy  had  to  travel  more  than  five  hundred  miles  south  from 
Cairo.1  “ Without  the  Italian  laborers,”  the  under-secretary  of 
state  for  public  works  is  reported  to  have  written,  “ we  should 
not  have  executed  this  colossal  operation.”  Numerous  Italians 
worked  on  the  bridges  across  the  Nile  at  Kafr-el-Zaiat  and 
Behna,  the  latter  a part  of  the  railway  route  from  Cairo  to 
Alexandria. 

These  are  the  outstanding  examples  of  Italian  effort.  Every- 
where it  is  chiefly  as  masons,  stonecutters  or  miners,  rather  than 
as  plain  navvies,  that  the  immigrants  have  counted.  Lord  Cromer 
wrote,  “ They  are,  as  a rule,  a steady,  industrious  race,  whose 
presence  is  very  useful  to  the  Egyptians,  as  it  enables  the  latter 
to  learn  various  crafts  requiring  skill  in  their  application.”  2 

On  the  Suez  Canal,  in  the  later  period,  many  were  employed  in 
rectifications;  considerable  colonies  have  been  at  Port  Said  and 
Suez,  the  source  of  supply  of  many  Italian  pilots  in  the  employ 
of  the  Canal  company.  In  the  region  of  Alexandria  a host  of 
fishermen,  nearly  all  from  Molfetta,  in  Apulia,  have  been  almost 
without  competitors.  There  have  been  clerks,  besides,  and  re- 
tail dealers,  and  a rather  motley  throng  of  adventurers,  prosti- 
tutes, and  others.  Not  less  than  half  the  Italians,  according  to 
the  Egyptian  census,  are  women  — it  is  a unique  situation  in 
the  countries  where  the  immigrants  go ! 3 

1 Despite  consular  warnings  diffused  in  Italy,  too  many  came,  including  Italians 
not  competent  to  work  in  granite,  and  on  two  dolorous  occasions,  hundreds  of  the 
surplus  had  to  be  repatriated  by  the  government. 

2 Earl  of  Cromer,  Modern  Egypt  (New  York,  1908),  ii,  p.  248. 

3 “ La  colonia  italiana  al  Cairo,”  Annali  di  Statistica,  ser.  II,  xxi  (1881),  pp.  31  f.; 
the  following  reports  in  Emig.  e Col.,  1906,  ii:  S.  Tugini  and  C.  Arrivabene-Valenti- 
Gonzaga,  “ Gli  italiani  in  Egitto,”  pp.  145-201;  O.  Toscani,  “11  distretto  consolare 
di  Cairo  e la  colonia  italiana,”  pp.  202-212;  R.  Monzani,  “ II  distretto  consolare  e 
la  colonia  italiana  di  Alessandria  di  Egitto,”  pp.  213-270;  G.  Iona,  “ II  distretto 
consolare  di  Porto  Said  e l’emigrazione  italiana,”  pp.  271-282;  L.  Deperais,  “ Suez 
e la  colonia  italiana,”  pp.  283  f.  See  also  E.  Bigiavi,  “ Rapporti  commercial!  e 
politici  fra  l’ltalia  e l’Egitto,”  Rivista  Coloniale,  January-February,  1909,  pp.  35- 
44;  “Nisi,”  “11  lato  negativo  dell’  opera  dell’  Italia  e degli  italiani  in  Egitto,” 
Vita  Italiana  all’  Estero,  April  24,  1914,  pp.  258-271. 


214 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


As  far  as  the  past  is  concerned,  Tripoli,  unlike  Tunisia,  might  be 
omitted  from  a study  of  Italian  immigration.  In  the  future,  under 
Italian  rule,  the  Mediterranean  coast  of  the  country  may  be  found 
to  give  scope  to  dry  fanning,  and  South  Italians  will  perhaps 
realize  a new  career  there.  In  the  dramatic  developments  in 
Tunisia,  some  students  have  found  substance  for  the  hope  that 
an  agricultural  Tripoli  might  yet  be  created,  when  once  knotty 
land  problems  have  been  solved.1 

Six  hours  and  an  outlay  of  five  lire  suffice  for  the  journey  from 
Palermo  to  Tunis.  Since  this  northernmost  country  of  Africa  is 
so  accessible,  and  since  in  its  physical  traits  it  has  so  much  in  com- 
mon with  the  Mediterranean  island,  we  cannot  be  surprised  that 
Italians  should  have  come  to  it  freely,  while  the  French,  as  one 
writer  has  said,  should  have  deemed  the  voyage  from  Marseilles 
as  wild  as  that  of  the  Argonauts  in  pursuit  of  the  Golden  Fleece.2 
In  Tunisia  the  Italians  have  put  together  an  intensely  interesting 
community,  a true  colony  in  every  sense  save  the  political. 

The  merchants  of  Pisa,  Genoa,  and  Venice  who  had  dealings 
with  Tunisia  in  the  thirteenth  century  were  the  prototypes  of 
those  Jews  and  Christians  of  Leghorn  and  Genoa  who.  early  in 
the  nineteenth,  bartered  manufactured  goods  with  the  Arabs  for 
cereals,  oil,  and  wool.  Some  Sicilian  and  Neapolitan  fishermen 
and  a few  laborers  also  came  early  in  the  last  century  and  helped 
to  found  one  of  the  oldest  of  the  modern  Italian  emigrant  colonies. 
When  in  1878  construction  of  the  railroad  running  from  Tunis  to 
the  Algerian  border  was  begun,  it  gave  a sudden  impetus  to  the 
immigration  of  laborers,  and  thereafter  the  commercial  character 
of  the  old  population  began  to  lose  its  prominence.  After  the 
French  occupation,  many  Italian  interests  were  taken  over  by  the 
French,  as  in  Egypt  they  had  been  taken  over  by  the  English. 
Especially  after  1881,  the  year  of  effective  French  interference  in 

1 E.  Chicco  and  A.  Medana,  “ Tripoli  e la  colonia  italiana,”  Emig.  e Col.,  1906, 
ii,  pp.  286-296;  A.  Franzoni,  Colonizzazione  e propricla  fondiaria  in  Libia,  Rome, 
1912;  Societa  Italiana  per  lo  Studio  della  Libia,  La  Missione  Frauchetti  in  Tripoli- 
tana,  Florence  and  Milan,  1914. 

2 A.  Davin,  “ Les  Italiens  en  Tunisie,”  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  October  1,  1910, 
p.  702. 


NORTH  AFRICA  21 5 

the  country,  a substantial  inflow  of  Italian  labor  started.  It  was 
the  beginning  of  an  era  of  broad  economic  development. 

Where  work  was,  there  the  Italian  went.  To  his  arms  fell  the 
task  of  laying  the  railways,  of  building  barracks,  schools,  hospi- 
tals, prisons.  The  port  of  Tunis  he  enlarged  and  deepened,  that  of 
Susa,  that  of  Sfax;  Bizerta  he  fortified.  Into  northwestern  Tunisia 
he  betook  himself  to  carry  on  the  lumber  industry,  staying  five 
or  six  months  at  a time.  He  found  steady  employment  with  the 
transportation  companies.  Having  built  the  railways  back  from 
the  coast  into  the  interior,  he  reached  the  mineral  country, 
brought  phosphates  to  the  surface  and  so  contributed  to  the 
development  of  a leading  industry.  Into  the  coast  waters  he 
brought  his  ships  from  the  ports  of  the  Italian  South,  staying 
from  three  to  six  months  at  a time,  according  to  the  product  he 
sought  — anchovy,  sardine,  sponge,  coral  — and  no  other  men 
equalled  him  in  the  extent  of  this  work.1  He  settled  in  nearly  all 
the  cities  of  the  east  and  north  coasts,  as  merchant  and  profes- 
sional man,  as  tailor,  barber,  shoemaker,  most  of  all  as  unskilled 
laborer  and  artisan  in  the  building  trades.  He  brought  no  small 
amount  of  capital  into  the  regency  for  the  conduct  of  his  business. 
And  as  agriculturist,  from  small  beginnings,  made  about  the  year 
1890,  he  spread  far  over  the  country,  making  a tortuous  chain  of 
settlements  behind  the  east  and  north  coast  lines  and  southwest- 
ward  into  the  interior. 

It  is  this  broad  achievement,  made  possible  by  the  unintermit- 
tent  access  of  more  immigrants,  that  has  given  popularity  to  the 
saying  of  an  Italian  statesman,  that  Tunisia  is  an  Italian  colony 
guarded  by  French  soldiers.  An  Italian  estimate  of  1881  claimed 
a population  of  11,000  Italians,  a French  estimate  7000.  Ten 
years  later,  after  the  Sicilians  had  come  “ like  ants  ” (as  a writer 
said),  30,000  were  claimed;  in  1898,  64,000,  a number  probably 
too  low.  In  1903,  80,000  were  estimated  (exclusive  of  3000  men 

1 0.  De  Boccard,  “ Le  condizioni  attuali  della  Tunisia  e della  nostra  colonia,” 
LTlalia  Coloniale,  April-May,  1904,  pp.  469  f.;  G.  Loth,  Le  peuplement  italien 
en  Tunisie  et  en  Algerie  (Paris,  1905),  ch.  viii.  Loth’s  book  is  one  of  the  best 
written  on  any  aspect  of  Italian  immigration.  See  also  “Tunisino,”  “La  pesca 
sulle  coste  della  Tunisia  e i pescatori  italiani,”  Vita  Italiana  all ’ Estero,  September 
25>  1914,  PP-  183-189. 


2l6 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


in  fisheries  and  forestry,  a group  fluctuating  much  from  year  to 
year);  three-fifths  were  men.  A census  of  1906  found  81,156. 
Later  computations  reached  results  of  105,000  in  1909  and  130,000 
in  1915 ; but  these  cannot  claim  to  be  accurate,  and  Italians  born 
in  Tunisia  have  been  counted  along  with  true  immigrants.  By 
contrast,  the  French,  protectors  and  administrators  of  the  coun- 
try, have  been  held  to  number  recently  some  40,000  (the  1906 
census  counted  34,610).  Few  other  Europeans  have  been  present. 
In  Tunis,  the  largest  city,  the  Italian  language  is  more  generally 
spoken  than  the  French.  Outside  the  cities  the  French  inhabi- 
tants are  scanty.  In  some  communities  the  Italians  are  almost 
alone. 

In  its  pioneer  character  the  agricultural  accomplishment  of  the 
Italians  has  no  parallel  except  in  Argentina  or  Brazil.  It  is  not 
that  they  have  as  yet  come  to  own  much  land.  The  most  recent 
figures  which  I have  seen  (Department  of  Agriculture,  1909) 
grant  them  command  of  83,000  hectares  and  the  French  nearly 
700,000.  Yet  Italian  proprietors  numbered  1167  and  French  only 
2395,  and  Italian  proprietors  of  estates  of  less  than  ten  hectares 
outnumbered  French  proprietors  of  such  estates  — be  it  said  in 
passing  that  the  native  races  have  no  tradition  of  agriculture  and 
that  efforts  to  enlist  their  labor  have  failed.  While  the  French 
proprietors  have  large  estates  which  are  cultivated  by  others, 
there  are  twelve  Italian  cultivators  for  one  Italian  proprietor. 
The  Italians  are  sometimes  mere  agricultural  laborers,  and  some- 
times cultivate  upon  shares.  When  they  plan  ultimately  to  own 
their  land  they  take  it  upon  an  enzel  contract.  The  penniless 
immigrant  begins  as  a hired  man,  earning  sixty  or  seventy  francs 
a month  and  saving  half  of  it.  In  three  or  four  years  he  lays  by  a 
thousand  francs,  enough  to  begin  the  enzel  arrangement.  Paying 
commonly  about  fifteen  francs  per  hectare  per  year,  he  secures  the 
right  to  hold  and  improve  his  land  in  perpetuity,  passing  the  right 
on  to  his  children.  At  any  time,  by  making  sixteen  payments,  he 
may  receive  the  full  title  to  his  land.  In  this  way  many  Italians 
have  already  become  proprietors  or  have  advanced  on  the  road  to 
ownership;  but  many  also  who  made  their  contracts  when  land 
values  were  inflated  have  since  met  insolvency.  They  have  culti- 


NORTH  AFRICA 


217 


vated  most  of  all  the  vine  — export  prices  have  been  fortunately 
high  in  recent  years  — and,  after  the  vine,  the  cereals;  their 
household  needs  of  vegetables  they  have  supplied  from  patches  of 
garden.  Gradually  the  shelter  of  cave,  thatched  hut  or  shack  has 
given  way  to  a house  and  the  farmer  has  married  or  has  brought 
his  family  from  Italy.  It  has  been  common  for  the  farm  laborer’s 
wife  to  live  in  the  town,  working  as  a laundress  or  otherwise,  and 
to  see  her  husband  only  during  his  week-end  visits.1 

From  Sicily,  Calabria,  Basilicata,  Apulia  these  immigrants 
have  come.  Two-thirds  or  more  have  originated  in  Sicily  and  of 
them  a large  majority  in  the  provinces  of  Palermo  and  Trapani. 
They  have  not  grown  rich,  many  have  been  shiftless  and  casual. 
Yet  the  mass  have  won  for  themselves  a commendable  degree  of 
comfort  and  well-being  (even  though  their  savings  sent  to  Italy 
have  been  much  overstated).  Speaking  of  the  farmer,  a French 
eulogist  has  written,  “ The  Sicilian  is  human  force  contending 
against  an  unkind  soil.  He  does  not  think,  for  he  has  not  the 
time;  he  does  not  know,  for  he  has  not  been  taught;  but  he 
clings  to  his  task  as  a wild  beast  to  its  young.”2  With  persist- 
ence overcoming  the  handicap  of  his  want  of  training,  with  rigid 
frugality  saving  the  fruits  of  persistence,  he  has  indeed  made  the 
living  that  a crowded  Sicily  has  denied  him.  But  it  is  fair  to 
add  that  his  technical  blunders  in  agriculture  have  been  many, 
and  his  capacity  for  hard  work  has  been  much  less  than  that  of 
his  occasional  Piedmontese  rival.  In  most  instances,  his  wife,  as 
in  Sicily,  has  contributed  little  to  the  income  of  his  household. 
The  American  type  of  padrone  has  sometimes  exercised  an  im- 
portant role. 

Tunisia  is  one  of  the  few  countries  in  which  the  Italians  have 
had  a genuine  labor  movement.  It  is  true  that  a competent 

1 On  the  agricultural  situation,  see  Loth,  chs.  vi  and  vii;  T.  Carletti,  “La 
Tunisia  e l’emigrazione  italiana,”  Emig.  e Col.,  1906,  ii,  ch.  v;  U.  Sabetta,  “ Con- 
dizioni  economiche  della  Tunisia  in  rapporto  all’  emigrazione  italiana,”  Boll.  Emig., 
1910,  No.  2,  pp.  47-75;  E.  Eles,  “La  proprieta  rurale  degli  italiani  in  Tunisia,” 
Boll.  Emig.,  1910,  No.  2,  pp.  76-90;  P.  Denis,  “ Italiens  de  Tunisie,”  Revue  du 
Mois,  June  10,  1908,  pp.  686-709;  C.  Fidel,  Les  interets  italiens  en  Tunisie  (Paris, 
I9II)>  PP-  6-1 1 ; O.  Pedrazzi,  “Gli  agricoltori  italiani  in  Tunisia,”  Rivista  Coloniale, 
February,  1915,  pp.  70-81. 

- M.  Braquehaye,  cited  by  Carletti,  p.  361. 


218 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


authority  could  write,  as  late  as  March,  1903,  “ Despite  so  great 
a concourse  of  workmen  the  idea  of  a strike  has  never  existed.”  1 
But  even  before  that  year  was  ended,  the  Italian  masons  quit 
work  for  higher  wages.  By  quick  degrees  the  carpenters  followed, 
then  the  harbor  workmen,  the  teamsters,  mechanics,  and  miners. 
It  was  almost  a general  strike,  and  it  accomplished  its  aim.  Under 
its  influence,  the  burning  question  of  national  rivalry  sank  for  the 
moment  to  second  place.  Rising  costs  of  living  in  the  years  be- 
fore and  after  1900  seem  to  have  prompted  the  outbreak,  and  only 
unionism  could  hope  to  maintain  the  level  of  wages  against  the 
competition  of  later  immigrants.  The  young  organizations  pres- 
ently, however,  came  to  grief,  and  their  leaders  were  prosecuted. 
Next,  the  masons,  held  together  by  their  journal,  La  Voce  del 
Muratore,  secured  wage  concessions  under  the  threat  of  a strike; 
and  the  bakers  did  likewise.  In  1907,  to  protect  wages,  a decree 
was  secured  preventing  the  immigration  of  any  Italians  who  had 
not  arranged  for  employment  in  advance  and  who  would  not  be 
repatriated  in  case  of  need.2  Subsequently,  through  high  costs  of 
living  and  pressure  exerted  by  the  French  population,  Tunisia, 
despite  its  labor  movement,  lost  a part  of  its  attractiveness  as  a 
field  for  Italian  immigration. 

Both  Italian  and  French  observers  have  borne  witness  to  the 
intensely  nationalistic  character  of  the  Italians  in  Tunisia.  The 
ill-feeling  of  the  Crispi  period  has  passed,  but  no  mutual  confi- 
dence, no  warmth  of  regard  has  taken  its  place.  Not  only  have 
the  Italians  lived  as  in  Italy,  little  assimilated  even  in  external 
ways;  not  only  have  they  clung  to  the  language  and  social  organ- 
ization they  have  known  — so  much  is  only  their  clear  right  de- 
fined in  the  agreement  of  1896  by  which  Italy  renounced  her 
political  aspirations  — but  they  have  been  enthusiastically  pa- 
triotic. They  have  not  liked  the  French,  nor  the  French  them. 
The  labor  harmony  of  1903  was  temporary.  Although  advantages 
are  to  be  gained  by  naturalization,  less  than  fifty  changed  their 
allegiance  in  1914,  a typical  enough  year.  They  have  been  a 
thorn  in  the  French  flesh.  Much  as  the  question  of  Tunisia  has 
been  discussed,  only  two  paths  into  the  future  have  been  sug- 
1 Carletti,  p.  365.  2 Fidel,  pp.  11-13;  Sabetta,  pp.  18-28. 


NORTH  AFRICA 


219 


gested:  French  immigration  may  be  stimulated  — but  climatic 
and  economic  disadvantages  in  Tunisia  and  a stationary  popula- 
tion in  France  have  made  this  way  unlikely;  or,  the  Italians  in 
Tunisia  may  be  assimilated  — but  their  excess  of  numbers,  their 
eagerness  to  remain  Italian  and  the  eagerness  of  Italy  to  keep 
them  so,  the  fresh  arrivals  of  immigrants,  the  easy  coming  and 
going  between  Italy  and  Tunisia,  these  things  have  made  the 
second  way  unlikely  in  the  foreseeable  future.  As  long  as  political 
overlordship  is  held  by  France,  a vital  matter  for  the  peace  of 
Tunisia  must  be  the  continued  friendship  of  France  and  Italy.1 

Sharp  contrasts  accompany  the  resemblances  in  the  history  of 
the  Italians  in  Algeria  and  Tunisia.  In  point  of  climate,  topog- 
raphy, soil  and  subsoil  resources,  in  point  of  character  of  the 
indigenous  population,  the  two  regions  have  so  much  in  common 
that  any  political  boundary  must  serve  a human  interest  only. 
Even  political  character,  however,  is  similar  in  the  two  regions, 
for  they  acknowledge  the  sway  of  one  country,  France.  But 
when  so  much  is  said,  it  is  time  to  turn  to  the  contrasts. 

As  far  back  as  1833,  1100  Italians  were  estimated  to  be  living 
in  Algeria.  Among  the  immigrants  of  these  earlier  decades,  not 
yet  a part  of  the  great  movement  of  emigration,  there  were  many 
refugees  from  justice  and  deserters  from  the  army.  By  1855  some 
9000  Italians  were  resident  in  a colony  where  French  citizens  were 
ten  times  as  numerous.  The  great  excess  of  French  over  Italian 
population  has  continued  to  be  one  of  the  most  striking  differences 
between  Algeria  and  Tunisia.  In  1855  there  were  also  some  42,- 
500  Spaniards.  Their  great  excess  over  the  Italians  has  also 

1 The  general  study  of  Carletti  is  an  enlargement  and  revision  of  a report  pub- 
lished two  years  earlier  in  Boll.  Emig.  In  addition  to  the  other  works  already  cited, 
see  Carpi,  ii,  pp.  146-153;  J.  Saurin,  L’invasion  sicilienne  et  le  peuplement  franqais 
de  la  Tunisie,  Paris,  1900  (?);  A.  di  Sandro,  “ L’italiauita  minacciata  in  Tunisia,” 
L'ltalia  Coloniale,  July,  1901,  pp.  10-16;  G.  Ricciardi,  “La  Tunisia  e l’emigra- 
zione  italiana,”  Emig.  e Col.,  1906,  ii,  pp.  409-417;  F.  De  Velutiis,  “ La  colonia 
italiana  in  Susa  di  Tunisia,”  Emig.  e Col.,  pp.  433-448;  G.  Bonacci,  “ Le  scuole  e 
gli  italiani  in  Tunisia,”  Rivista  Coloniale,  August  10-25,  1910,  pp.  250-262;  Inch. 
Pari.,  vi",  pp.  745-749;  E.  Corradini,  II  volere  d’ltalia  (Naples,  1911),  pp.  114-154; 
G.  Castellini,  Tunisi  e Tripoli  (Turin,  1911),  esp.  chs.  iii,  ix,  x;  V.  Piquet,  La 
colonisation  fran^aise  dans  VAfrique  du  Nord  (Paris,  1912),  pp.  305-435. 


220 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


continued  to  distinguish  the  country.  Does  not  Algeria  he  near 
to  Spain,  quite  as  Tunisia  lies  near  to  Italy  ? And  is  not  Algeria 
much  farther  from  Sicily  than  Tunisia  ? So  it  happens  that 
Sicilians  are  much  less  numerous  in  the  remoter  than  in  the  nearer 
country,  and  Neapolitans  and  North  Italians  relatively  more 
numerous.  In  1866  the  French  official  count  yielded  17,000  Ital- 
ians; in  1886,  44,000,  but  this  was  the  apex  of  the  movement,  for 
the  1896  figures  showed  only  35,000,  and  those  of  1906  only 
33,000.  In  this  substantial  decline  of  the  Italian  population  (pres- 
ently to  be  explained)  appears  still  another  contrast  with  Tunisia. 
The  French  stock  in  1906  numbered  279,000,  the  Spanish  117,000, 
naturalized  citizens  were  170,000.  Spaniards  and  Italians  have 
generally  settled  apart  from  each  other,  the  former  showing  a 
preference  for  the  province  of  Oran,  nearest  to  Spain,  the  latter 
for  the  province  of  Constantine,  nearest  to  Italy.  There  have 
been  several  thousands  of  Italians  in  the  city  of  Algiers,  even 
more  in  Bona,  many  in  Philippeville  and  La  Calle.  Rarely  is  the 
Italian  language  so  generally  spoken  as  in  the  cities  of  Tunisia.1 

Among  those  who  came  earliest  to  Algeria  were  the  coral  fisher- 
men, who  developed  a most  extensive  industry.  After  1875.  dis- 
covering  more  profitable  fields  elsewhere,  they  withdrew.  The 
“ fishermen  of  fish  ” ( pescatori  di  pesce ) followed  and  in  turn 
developed  a business  of  broad  proportions.  At  one  time  there  were 
probably  several  thousands  of  them,  making  their  journey 
periodically  from  Ischia,  Procida,  and  the  coast  about  Naples 
generally.  The  anxious  desire  of  France  to  have  French  fishermen 
off  the  coasts  of  her  colony,  and  to  have  boats  manned  by  crews 
largely  French,  led  to  legal  limitations  upon  Italian  marine 
activities  which  partly  caused  the  decline  in  numbers  of  those 
registered  as  Italians  after  1886. 2 

In  the  period  of  growing  population,  a potent  inducement  to 
come  lay  in  the  expansion  of  public  works.  On  large  stretches  of 
railroad,  for  example  that  running  from  Bona  to  Guelma,  in- 

1 On  historical  aspects,  see  esp.  R.  Ricoux,  La  demographic  figuree  de  I’Algerie, 
Paris,  1880;  G.  B.  Maehiavelli,  “ Immigrazione  e coionie  italiane  in  Algeria,” 
Emig.  e Col.,  1906,  ii,  pp.  449-460;  Loth,  passim;  Piquet,  pp.  25-302. 

2 Besides  the  historical  references  given,  see  J.  Lenormand,  Questions  algeriennes 
— Le  peril  eirangcr  (Paris,  1899),  pp.  101-104,  155-163. 


NORTH  AFRICA 


221 


numerable  Italians  were  employed,  who  shared  their  opportunities 
with  fewer  Spaniards.  Another  of  the  reasons  for  the  decline  of 
Italian  immigration  was  the  termination  of  the  great  era  of  con- 
struction of  railways,  roads,  canals,  reservoirs,  and  the  like. 
Before  1878  a considerable  number  of  Italians  had  availed  them- 
selves of  the  chance  to  take  over  public  lands  for  agriculture. 
Statutory  restrictions  placed  on  the  allotment  of  farms  to  others 
than  the  French  and  emigrants  from  Alsace-Lorraine  made  still 
another  cause  contributing  to  the  decline.  As  laborers  in  gardens 
and  fields,  and  as  lumberjacks  in  the  forests  of  Constantine,  Ital- 
ians have,  however,  continued  to  find  good  hire.1  An  increase, 
rather  than  a decrease,  has  taken  place  in  their  employment  in  the 
extensive  mines,  both  of  the  metals  and  phosphates,  in  Constan- 
tine. In  fact,  they  have  been  almost  alone  in  this  branch  of  labor. 
Many  have  found  occupation  as  marble  workers,  brick  makers, 
plasterers,  masons,  even  as  architects.  In  the  towns,  Neapolitan 
and  Palermitan  shoemakers  have  been  omnipresent.  It  is  on  the 
whole  a rather  poor  population  — economically  speaking  — that 
the  immigrants  have  been;  a little  better  off  than  their  compa- 
triots at  home,  yet  in  no  sense  flourishing. 

At  no  point  is  the  contrast  between  the  case  of  Algeria  and  that 
of  Tunisia  more  telling  than  in  the  matter  of  the  immigrants’  alle- 
giance to  country.  The  Tunisian  Italians  we  have  seen  to  be  de- 
fiantly nationalistic,  robustly  resistant  to  amalgamation.  The 
Algerian  Italians  have  acknowledged  a weaker  bond.  Unlike  the 
professionisti  of  Tunisia,  they  appear,  when  economically  success- 
ful, to  regard  naturalization  as  a means  of  promotion  into  a more 
eligible  social  class.  Between  1865  and  1900,  more  than  8000 
were  naturalized;  in  1906,  the  census  counted  over  12,000  who 
had  become  French  citizens;  the  decline  registered  in  the  Italian 
population  after  1886  being,  therefore,  through  this  fact,  largely 
specious.  In  particular,  the  restrictive  laws  governing  fishing  and 
the  crews  of  boats  induced  many  Italians  to  change  their  alle- 

1 Apart  from  the  indigenous  population  and  some  soldiers,  most  of  the  agricul- 
tural laborers  are  Italians  and  Spaniards,  “demanding  less  than  the  French  by  way 
of  remuneration.”  This  foreign  labor  supply  is  of  much  greater  relative  importance 
than  that  of  Southern  France.  See  P.  Raynal,  Le  v ignoble  franqais  et  I’Afrique  da- 
Nord  (Paris,  1912),  p.  80. 


222 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


giance,  so  that  of  late  years,  notwithstanding  these  measures,  the 
Algerian  fishermen  and  seamen  have  continued  to  be  Italians, 
only  naturalized,  almost  to  the  exclusion  of  other  stocks.  Again, 
although  the  laws  of  the  colony,  passed  in  a period  of  fear  by  the 
French  Parliament,  prescribe  that  Algerian-born  sons  of  foreign 
parents  shall  be  regarded  as  of  French  nationality,  only  a small 
minority  of  children  born  of  Italian  parents  have  taken  out  Italian 
citizenship,  when  old  enough;  this,  despite  the  fact  that  military 
service  in  the  French  interest  is  expected  of  French  citizens.1 

For  the  greater  assimilability  of  the  Italians  of  Algeria  as  com- 
pared with  those  of  Tunisia,  a number  of  reasons  might  be  assigned. 
Less  homogeneous,  they  have  less  in  common  with  each  other. 
Dwelling  farther  from  Italy,  they  have  fewer  relationships  with 
that  country,  commercial  or  social.  Having  never  had  an  ardent 
hope  of  political  control,  they  have  no  surviving  hope  today. 
Having  never  conceded  a claim  to  control,  they  have  never  re- 
ceived special  privileges  by  way  of  indemnification.  Most  of  all, 
having  never  been  more  than  a minor  fraction  of  the  total  resi- 
dent European  population,  they  have  had  only  the  alternatives 
of  remaining  alien  or  being  absorbed.  The  way  to  profit  has  been 
the  way  of  absorption,  for  social  and  for  legal  reasons.  Out  of  the 
Italian  stock  of  Algeria,  it  is  worth  noting  in  conclusion,  has  come 
at  least  one  distinguished  servant  of  France,  the  premier  Viviani.2 

1 Sig.  Machiavelli  reported  that  in  three  years  only  twelve  Algerian-born  Italians 
had  become  Italian  citizens  (p.  456). 

2 On  the  Italians  in  Algeria,  see,  besides  the  works  mentioned,  Carpi,  ii,  pp.  82- 
84,  91,  108-110;  V.  Demontes,  Le  pen  pie  algerien , Algiers,  1906;  and  three  reports 
in  Emig.  e Col.,  1906,  ii:  G.  B.  Beverini,  “ II  dipartimento  di  Costantina  in  Algeria,” 
pp.  461  f.;  V.  Siciliani,  “ La  colonia  italiana  di  Bona,”  pp.  463-469;  D.  Palomba, 
“ La  colonia  italiana  in  La  Calle  e l’immigrazione  nell’  ultimo  decennio,”  pp.  470  t. 


CHAPTER  XIII 


ARGENTINA.  I.  AN  ECONOMIC  RENAISSANCE.  THE 
ITALIANS  IN  AGRICULTURE 

Only  because  she  is  rejuvenated  is  Argentina  today  one  of  the 
world’s  young  countries.  The  history  of  an  imperial  domain 
during  three  of  the  four  centuries  which  have  followed  Solis’  dis- 
covery of  the  Plata  contains  little  that  is  edifying  and  glorious, 
much  that  is  constrained  and  illiberal,  expressive  of  an  old  society 
and  inaccordant  with  a new.  It  is  the  record  of  the  migration  of 
adventurers  in  quest  of  treasure,  whose  expectation  of  return  to 
their  native  land  was  reenforced  by  the  restrictions  imposed  by 
their  government.  The  consuming  desire  to  exploit  the  mines  of 
the  Cordilleras,  without  the  competition  of  others,  gives  the  key 
to  an  understanding  of  Spanish  policy  in  this  long  period.  None 
but  Spaniards  might  enter  the  colony,  none  but  them  might  trade 
with  it.  To  do  so,  even  they  must  secure  special  permission,  and 
their  ships  must  follow  rigid  prescriptions  as  to  sailing  time  and 
route.  The  introduction  of  negro  slaves  in  the  eighteenth  century, 
under  a monopoly  conceded  to  England  at  the  peace  of  Utrecht, 
only  reflected  further  the  singleness  of  Spanish  policy.  Of  col- 
onization there  was  little  thought.  Only  the  Jesuits  established 
occasional  permanent  missions  and  made  some  beginnings  of  in- 
dustry. But  in  1767  they  were  expelled,  while  the  trade  monop- 
olies and  general  restrictions  continued.  Because  of  legal  and 
other  impediments  to  the  emigration  of  Spanish  women  and  the 
want  of  any  potent  sentimental  obstructions  to  union  with  the 
Indians,  the  Spaniards  gave  themselves  readily  to  miscegenation 
and  started  a race  which,  from  this  or  whatever  cause,  has  since 
been,  in  the  midst  of  bountiful  opportunities,  unprogressive. 

Gradually  the  Spanish  crust  in  America  cracked  and  broke. 
In  1774,  following  upon  a period  of  increased  smuggling,  inter- 
colonial trade  was  allowed.  The  partial  removal  of  restrictions 


223 


224 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


by  Charles  III  in  1778,  and  the  stirring  revolutions  in  North 
America  and  France,  undoubtedly  quickened  Argentine  restive- 
ness under  the  restrictions  that  remained.  Two  elements  in  the 
state,  creole  and  mestizo,  were  democratic.  When  in  1806  the 
people,  by  their  own  unassisted  efforts,  terminated  the  brief 
English  occupation  of  Buenos  Aires,  they  gained  a sense  of  pride 
and  hope  of  autonomy.  These  bore  their  fruit  in  the  revolution 
of  May,  1810,  magnificently  starting  a movement  which  in  a few 
years  was  to  liberate  a continent  from  foreign  misgovemment,  to 
put  a period  to  three  centuries  of  darkness,  a colossal  attempt, 
foredoomed  to  failure,  to  impose  Old  World  ways  in  New  World 
conditions. 

Despite  this  show  of  capacity,  the  people  failed  to  inaugurate 
an  era  of  advance.  Whether  enduring  harm  had  been  done  by  the 
absolutist  and  ecclesiastic  regime,  or  whether  the  race  stock  was 
essentially  deficient  in  commanding  and  constructive  genius,  the 
record  was  still,  for  nearly  half  a century,  one  of  intestine  strug- 
gle. Not  till  1852  did  the  arch-tyrant  Rosas  come  to  grief,  and 
not  till  ten  years  later  was  a federal  government  born.  With  the 
forces  of  reaction  and  feudalism  spent,  the  task  ahead  was  to  lay 
new  foundations  for  economic  and  legal  institutions  and  to  make 
a people  out  of  new  elements.  Only  two  years  earlier,  Austrian 
dominion  had  come  to  an  end  in  Italy.  The  contrasting  task  of 
the  Terza  Italia  was  to  make  over  old  institutions  and  old  peoples 
into  new,  but  incidentally  she  was  to  contribute  lavishly  to  the 
upbuilding  of  the  new  Argentine. 

The  remarkable  physical  qualities  which  fit  Argentina  for  vast 
contributions  to  the  world’s  sustenance  have  been  often  recited. 
An  unequalled  length  of  country  from  north  to  south,  torrid  at 
the  one  extreme,  frigid  at  the  other,  rainy  at  both,  but  moderately 
dry  in  the  middle;  sloping  from  great  mountain  heights  in  the 
west  and  northwest  to  alluvial  lowlands  in  the  east;  with  fertile 
soil  covered  in  the  north  with  natural  growths  of  extraordinary 
variety  and  large  usefulness,  and  in  the  middle  and  south  with  tall 
grasses  or  scrub  wanting  only  to  be  turned  down  by  the  plow  to 
prepare  for  the  crops  that  man  desires;  these  are  the  gifts  of 


ARGENTINA.  AN  ECONOMIC  RENAISSANCE  225 


Nature.  The  immense  pampas  lands,  while  still  untilled,  served 
as  the  roaming  grounds  of  cattle  and  sheep  and  horses  whose 
raising  constituted  the  first  great  industry  of  Argentina.  The 
discovery  of  the  fitness  of  the  endless  plain  for  cereals  dates  only 
from  two  score  years  ago.  From  1878,  when  Argentina  first  began 
to  produce  more  wheat  than  was  needed  at  home,  to  the  early 
twentieth  century,  when  three-quarters  of  her  production  is  ex- 
ported, is  a romantic  step.  For  among  all  countries  Argentina 
has  become  second  in  the  production  of  corn,  second  in  the  expor- 
tation of  wheat,  first  in  the  exportation  of  linseed.  Over  such  an 
accomplishment  it  is  reasonable  to  be  enthusiastic. 

Of  the  potentialities  of  the  country  the  old  Spanish  population 
knew  little,  nor  cared  to  know  much.  Grazing  had  occupied  it 
almost  exclusively,  and  grazing  requires  few  hands.  Why  should 
a country,  thus  sufficient  unto  itself,  ask  for  settlers  ? 

Here  and  there,  among  the  public  men  of  Argentina,  were  those 
who  saw  the  need  of  immigration.  Long  before  Alberdi  touched 
immortality  with  his  formula  of  Gobernar  es  poblar,  the  clear- 
sighted Rivadavia,  in  1812,  persuaded  the  Triumvirate  to  decree 
the  special  protection  of  foreign  immigrants,  above  all  such  as 
went  into  agriculture,  and  in  1824  he  appointed  a commission  to 
bring  “ laborers  and  artisans  of  every  kind  ” from  Europe.  The 
commission  did  a promising,  if  costly,  work ; but  its  suppression 
in  1830  by  the  victorious  Rosas  ended  for  many  years  the  attempt 
to  secure  immigrants.  The  tyrant  deposed,  there  sprang  from  the 
ashes  of  despotism  in  1853  the  Argentine  Constitution,  noteworthy 
among  the  world’s  fundamental  laws  for  its  provision  explicitly 
binding  the  state  to  encourage  and  not  to  bar  European  immigra- 
tion — not,  to  be  sure,  so  that  asylum  might  be  offered,  but  in  the 
interests  of  agriculture,  industry,  the  arts  and  sciences.  The 
provision  remains  today.  For  a dozen  years  from  1857,  there 
operated  in  the  state  of  Buenos  Aires  an  Asociacion  Filantropica 
del  Inmigracion,  sustained  by  private  subscription  and  state 
subvention;  it  issued  circulars  in  Europe,  sent  its  agents  there, 
and  could  behold  a rapidly  rising  tide  of  immigration.  A similar 
commission  was  created  in  Rosario,  Sante  Fe,  and  presently  one 
for  the  nation.  In  1876  a general  immigration  law  was  enacted, 


226 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


under  which  immigrants,  upon  landing,  were  received  free  of 
charge  in  a government  hotel,  with  permission  to  stay  a week  or 
even  longer;  and,  besides  other  advantages,  were  to  be  given  em- 
ployment anywhere  in  the  republic.  This  law  still  applies. 

As  early  as  the  mid-nineteenth  century,  the  attempt  was  made 
to  settle  immigrants  on  the  public  domain.  Each  province  owned 
the  unsettled  lands  within  its  borders,  the  national  government 
owned  those  of  the  territories.  In  1850  by  far  the  larger  portion 
of  the  country  was  still  so  held.  By  a series  of  laws  culminating  in 
1903,  provision  was  made  for  the  sale,  at  fixed  prices  or  by  auction, 
or  for  the  renting,  or  the  “ conceding,”  of  public  lands.  Under 
“ concession  ” an  individual  or  a company  received  title  to  the 
land  on  the  condition,  principally,  that  a stipulated  number  of 
persons  should  be  settled  on  it  in  a given  time.  Princely  estates 
were  alienated,  in  too  many  cases  recklessly  and  illegally.1  Acting 
under  the  land  law,  private  agencies  established  many  colonies, 
while  the  provinces  and  the  state  established  others.  That  pro- 
vision of  the  immigration  law  of  1876  which  ordained  that  agri- 
culturists be  transported  to  the  colonies  without  charge  inspired 
the  province  of  Sante  Fe  to  grant  free  transportation  to  mechanics 
and  others  as  well. 

Though  the  first  coming  of  the  Italians  to  Argentina  antedated 
all  of  these  measures,  the  subsequent  influx  was  closely  related  to 
them.  Before  i860  the  Italians  could  play  only  a subordinate 
part.  They  were  present,  it  appears,  at  the  founding  of  the  city 
of  Santa  Fe  in  1573  and  early  made  their  way  into  the  chief 
provinces.2  In  Buenos  Aires  only  10  (all  men)  were  counted  in  a 
census  of  1744,  and  63  in  an  incomplete  census  of  1810. 3 In  1832. 
Sir  Woodbine  Parish,  a credible  student,  found  that  the  British 
and  French  led,  among  the  non-Spanish  elements  of  Buenos 

1 A.  Pieyre,  Des  proccdes  employes  par  Vital  argentin  pour  Valiemtion  des  terres 
faisant  partie  de  son  domaine  prive,  Paris,  1905. 

2 G.  Parisi,  Storia  degli  italiani  nell’  Argentina  (Rome,  1907),  pp.  113  f. 

3 Buenos  Aires,  Censo  municipal  de  Buenos  Aires  de  1887,  i,  pp.  415,  433.  The 
occupational  distribution  of  these  Italians  is  reproduced  from  the  Rejistro  esta- 
distico  del  Estado  de  Buenos  Ayres  by  E.  Zuccarini  in  II  lavoro  degli  italiani  nella 
Repubblica  Argentina  dal  1 yi6  al  1910  (2d  ed.,  Buenos  Aires,  1910),  p.  S7. 


ARGENTINA.  AN  ECONOMIC  RENAISSANCE  22  J 

Aires,  and  that  the  Italians,  Germans,  and  others  made  up,  per- 
haps, five  to  seven  thousand.1 

One  of  the  prouder  memories  of  the  Argentine  Italians  is  that 
in  1852  an  exclusively  Italian  regiment  fought  and  bled  in  the 
struggle  to  maintain  the  state.  In  1854  the  Italian  Hospital, 
since  grown  to  imposing  proportions,  was  founded  and  an  Italian 
newspaper  was  launched.2  By  1856,  according  to  the  municipal 
census  of  Buenos  Aires,  the  Italians  there  had  risen  to  first  place 
among  the  foreigners,  exceeding  even  the  Spaniards,  and  num- 
bering 10,276;  nearly  half  the  immigrants  of  that  year  were 
Italians.  Karl  Andree,  a contemporary  chronicler,  said  that 
most  of  the  settlers  had  come  from  Piedmont  and  Genoa.  “ They 
work  as  sailors,  traveling  vendors,  petty  shopkeepers  and  tavern 
keepers.  On  the  rivers  they  have  eight  hundred  small  craft.” 
At  Sante  Fe  he  wrote,  “ The  shipping  of  this  place,  like  that  of 
other  ports,  is  mainly  in  the  hands  of  Italians.”  3 When  a census 
was  taken  in  Santa  Fe  province  in  1858,  it  recorded  1156  Italians, 
of  whom  four-fifths  were  males,  mostly  clustered  about  the  city 
of  Rosario.  Yet  at  this  date  they  were  less  than  3 per  cent  of  the 
population  of  Santa  Fe,  and  the  immigration  was  still  to  begin 
which  would  make  them,  thirty  years  later,  more  than  26  per 
cent.4  About  i860,  nearly  a third  of  the  depositors  in  the  Banco 
de  Buenos  Aires  were  Italians  and  their  claim  was  upon  a fifth  of 
the  deposits.5 6 

But  if  before  i860  the  Italians  were  only  an  important  minor- 
ity in  the  Argentine  population,  certainly  that  population  and 
the  general  degree  of  development  of  the  country  were  still  so 
slight  as  to  leave  bountiful  opportunities  for  enterprising  new- 
comers. According  to  guesses  of  varying  credibility,  the  popu- 
lation had  grown  from  about  500,000  in  1819  to  700,000  in  1837, 

1 Parish,  Buenos  Aires  and  the  provinces  of  the  Rio  de  la  Plata  (London,  1839), 
p.  30. 

2 Parisi,  pp.  55,  62. 

3 Andree,  Buenos-Ayres  und  die  Argent  ini schen  Provinzen  (3d  ed.,  Leipsic,  1874), 
PP-  313,  345-  (The  first  edition,  of  which  the  third  is  a reprint,  was  dated  1856.) 

4 Santa  Fe,  Primer  censo  general  de  la  Provincia  de  Santa  Fe  (3  vols.,  Buenos 

Aires,  1888),  i,  pp.  xxix,  liv. 

6 J.  A.  Alsina,  La  inmigracion  europea  (Buenos  Aires,  1898),  p.  45. 


228 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


and  to  1,210,000  in  i860  — the  last  figure  based  on  a rough 
governmental  census  of  185 7. 1 How  much  it  had  accomplished 
can  be  not  unfairly  inferred  from  a picture  drawn  by  the  Director 
of  the  first  Sante  Fe  census,  which  certainly  has  more  than  a 
provincial  application.  The  year  is  1852. 

The  population  consisted  of  only  40,000  inhabitants,  and  was  poor  and 
almost  wholly  without  trade  and  industry.  Agriculture  was  in  a wretched 
state.  Of  farming  implements  there  were  few,  and  they  were  but  w'ooden 
plows  like  those  used  by  the  Egyptians  in  the  day  of  the  Pharaohs.  In- 
sufficient wheat  was  harvested  for  bread,  and  the  bread  consumed  was  made 
of  flour  that  had  first  crossed  the  Atlantic  or  the  Pacific.  . . . The  great  ma- 
jority of  the  houses  had  straw'  roofs  and  only  a few  churches  of  Santa  Fe,  the 
City  Hall  and  the  houses  of  a few  upper-class  persons  w'ere  of  unusual  note. 

Rosario  was  a poor  hamlet  writh  no  more  noteworthy  building  than  its 
little  church  and  four  or  six  houses  put  up  in  the  last  years  of  this  period 
with  substantial  roofs  of  beams  and  tile.  Coronada  and  San  Lorenzo  were 
not  so  much  towrns  as  geographical  names;  and  as  for  the  old  places,  San 
Janvier,  Sauce  and  others  of  which  hardly  any  record  remains,  they  were 
stagnating  in  desolation  and  misery. 

Only  one  activity  throve:  grazing.  The  population  was  essentially 
pastoral.  It  had  taken  on  the  customs  of  the  desert,  living  constantly  on 
horseback  to  drive  the  cattle,  to  defend  them  against  the  invasions  of  the 
Indians,  or  to  be  ready  to  grasp  the  lance  or  the  saber  and  quell  the  inva- 
sions of  the  hostile  gaucho  leaders  or  to  put  dowm  anarchy.  Yet  this  in- 
dustry was  insufficient  for  the  progress  of  the  people,  since  the  absence  of 
liberty,  as  well  as  of  ways  of  communication,  rendered  all  trade  impossible.1 

After  such  an  era,  only  a quick  growth  could  achieve  the  aston- 
ishing economic  expansion  of  later  days.  In  the  period  1837-60. 
the  annual  rate  of  increase  of  the  population  was  twice  that  of 
the  previous  period  1819-37,  but  in  1860-95  it  exceeded  three 
times  that  rate.3  In  fact  the  census  of  1895  showed  a population 
of  4,044,911.  No  subsequent  general  count  has  been  made, 
unfortunately;  but  partial  censuses  and  estimates  yield  a figure, 
about  1915,  of  at  least  seven  million. 

How  largely  the  new  Argentina  has  been  made  out  of  fresh 
stock  has  not  been  generally  understood.  As  early  as  1869  the 
210,292  foreigners  in  the  country  were  nearly  an  eighth  of  the 

1 Segundo  censo  de  la  Repiiblica  Argentina  (3  vols.,  Buenos  Aires,  iSqS) , ii, 
pp.  xv  f. 

2 Primer  censo,  iii,  p.  120. 

3 Segundo  censo,  ii,  p.  xviii. 


ARGENTINA.  AN  ECONOMIC  RENAISSANCE  22g 


population;  but  the  1,004,527  of  1895  were  more  than  a quarter. 
Such  a proportion  the  foreign  population  of  the  United  States 
has  never  approached.  Most  of  all,  the  growth  had  been  in  the 
eastern  provinces.1  These  also  had  the  highest  percentage  of 
males,  a common  result  of  immigration,  and  although  in  1869 
they  already  had  the  largest  fraction  of  foreigners,  that  fraction, 
in  the  great  population  of  1895,  was  still  higher.  But  if  the 
eastern  provinces  (as  likewise  happened  in  North  America) 
were  predominantly  those  sought  by  immigrants,  such  growth  as 
came  to  the  West  was  even  more  largely  due  to  them.2  Spaniards 
there  were  in  large  numbers,  and  smaller  collections  of  French, 
English,  and  other  peoples,  but  the  Italians,  as  a result  of  the 
tremendous  influx  of  previous  years,  were  about  one-half  of  all 
the  foreigners.  With  half  a million  persons  they  were  actually 
an  eighth  of  the  population  of  the  country  — later  I shall  show 
that  their  strain  has  to  be  considered  much  greater.  In  recent 
years  the  foreign-born  Italians  must  have  been  approximately 
one  million.3 

If  one  were  to  divide  the  entire  history  of  Argentina  into  two 
periods,  the  first  would  include  the  colonial  epoch  and  the  major 
portion  of  the  nineteenth  century;  it  might  be  called  feudal, 
since  socially  and  legally  feudal  molds  long  survived  the  winning 
of  independence.  The  second  period  would  date  from  the  firm 
establishment  of  agriculture,  partly  because  of  the  new  social 
forms  and  ideals  to  which  its  development  gave  rise  and  impetus. 
So  pervasive  are  the  changes  of  the  new  time  that  it  is  difficult 
to  think  back  to  an  earlier  condition.  Once  agricultural  products 
had  to  be  imported  from  Spain.  Independence,  far  from  pro- 
moting home  production,  merely  enlarged  the  range  of  countries 
from  which  supplies  were  received.  Wheat  was  brought  from 

1 The  capital  and  four  provinces  increased  197  per  cent  in  population  in  1869- 
95,  while  the  three  northern  provinces,  whose  growth  stands  second  in  rapidity, 
increased  61  per  cent.  Segundo  censo,  ii,  p.  xxii. 

2 Ibid.,  p.  xl. 

3 For  estimates  and  census  figures  on  the  number  of  Italians  in  the  various 
provinces  and  chief  cities  of  Argentina  see  “ Saggio  di  una  statistica,”  etc.,  in  Boll. 
Emig.,  1912,  No.  1,  pp.  in  f. 


230 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


the  United  States,  Chili,  and  Australia;  sugar  from  Brazil,  Cuba, 
and  France;  tobacco  from  the  United  States,  Cuba,  and  Brazil; 
oil  from  Spain,  Italy,  and  France.  After  the  civil  wars  were 
ended  and  railroad  building  began  — ten  kilometers  were  laid  in 
1857,  five  hundred  were  in  use  a dozen  years  later  — home  pro- 
duction started.  In  1877,  for  the  first  time  since  Solis’  day,  the 
home  output  sufficed  for  home  needs.  But  once  started,  the 
production  grew  by  leaps  and  bounds.  In  1895  the  cultivated 
area  was  almost  nine  times  what  it  had  been  in  1872. 1 And  if  in 
that  year  the  production  of  wffieat  attained  its  apex  in  one  great 
province,  in  still  other  provinces,  as  the  sequel  was  so  abundantly 
to  prove,  it  had  only  made  a brave  start.  Year  after  year,  since 
the  seventies,  the  proportion  of  exports  consisting  of  grazing 
products  declined,  and  year  after  year  the  proportion  of  agri- 
cultural products  mounted.  These  are  but  the  cold  statistical 
expressions  of  a veritable  transformation  of  the  country. 

Where  did  the  Italians  stand  in  relation  to  this  great  change  ? 
Were  they,  in  any  significant  sense,  the  instruments  of  it  ? 

We  know  that  the  whole  agricultural  development  of  Argen- 
tina runs  parallel  with  the  rising  tide  of  immigration,  in  partic- 
ular the  Italian.  The  only  other  great  industry  of  the  country, 
the  leading  one  in  point  of  value  of  products,  grazing,  was  carried 
on  with  few  workmen,  and  these,  as  in  Uruguay,  were  men  of 
Spanish  or  mixed  blood  who  had  grown  up  to  their  trade.  Fur- 
ther we  know  that  of  845,000  Italians  who  arrived  in  the  years 
1876-97,  564,000  were  classed  as  agriculturists;  while,  to  list  the 
cognate  groups,  31,000  others  were  colonists,  2700  gardeners, 
93,000  unskilled,  and  75,000  without  occupation  (women  and 
children  mainly,  able  to  lend  a hand  in  farming).  Finally,  in 
all  the  immigrant  agriculturists  of  the  period,  seven  out  of  ten 
were  Italians.  Such  were  the  possibilities  of  Italian  participa- 
tion in  farming. 

Let  it  be  recalled  that  the  Argentine  government,  in  its  for- 
eign activities,  had  continually  aimed  to  introduce  agriculturists. 

1 1872,  580,008  hectares;  1888,  2,459,120  ha.;  1S95,  4,892,005  ha.  (Segundo 
censo,  iii,  p.  xxx.)  In  1908  the  cultivated  area  was  16,304,350  ha.,  of  which  7,341,995 
were  devoted  to  cereals.  Comision  del  Censo  Agropecuario,  Agricultural  and  Pastoral 
Census  of  the  Nation  (3  vols.,  Buenos  Aires,  1909),  ii,  p.  1. 


ARGENTINA.  AN  ECONOMIC  RENAISSANCE  23  I 


True,  the  more  modest  efforts  of  the  first  half  of  the  century  had 
had  a broader  purpose,  Rivadavia  for  example  desiring  among 
others  men  of  science;  but  the  period  of  successful  invitation 
painted  the  glories  of  agricultural  settlement.  Acquisition  of 
land  — that  was  the  bait  that  would  lure.  The  government 
knew  it  when  it  offered  tracts  to  colonizers;  the  agents  abroad 
knew  it  when  they  offered  a farm  to  the  colonist.  The  European 
agriculturist  was  self-confident  enough  to  think  that  tillage 
would  clear  him  a path  to  affluence  in  the  New  World.  To  a 
people  particularly  whose  dream  of  contentment  had  ever  been 
the  possession  of  land  and  who  had  failed  to  transmute  their 
dream  into  reality,  any  liberal  offer  must  be  all  but  irresistible. 
Is  it  strange  that  Carpi  contemporaneously  — late  in  the  sixties 
— should  have  judged  that  the  circulars  of  the  Argentine  govern- 
ment “ always  act  with  special  efficacy  upon  the  imagination  of 
the  Italian  country-folk  ” ? 1 

Though  advertisement  abroad  was  largely  by  governmental 
agency,  the  great  majority  of  the  colonies  were  private  enter- 
prises.2 Eager  for  profit,  proprietors  of  large  areas,  acquired  by 
inheritance  or  purchase,  or  by  special  “ concession  ” from  am- 
bitious governments,  looked  to  the  settlement  of  a grain-growing 
population  upon  their  idle  estates.  To  capitalists,  mainly  Eng- 
lish as  it  befell,  who  would  build  railways  through  the  colonized 
sections,  public  lands  were  granted  freely.  Generally  the  public 
lands  utilized  belonged  to  the  provinces,  which  sometimes,  but 
not  very  successfully,  established  colonies  directly.  The  im- 
mense domain  of  the  federal  government  was  in  the  territories, 
rich,  promising,  but  distant  from  markets  and  seaports.  Incredi- 
ble extravagance  has  characterized  its  disposition  of  these  lands, 
which  are  still  speculatively  held.  Though  the  territories  con- 
tain a few  colonies,  their  isolation,  together  with  defective  ad- 
ministration, has  hindered  their  development.3 

1 Carpi,  i,  p.  69. 

2 Of  those  existing  about  1885,  eight-ninths  were  private.  L.  Guilaine,  La 
Republique  Argentine  (Paris,  1887),  p.  134. 

3 See  a criticism,  resting  on  records  in  the  Direction  de  Tierras  y Colonias,  by  R. 
Campolieti,  La  colonizzazione  italiana  nelV  Argentina  (Buenos  Aires  and  Genoa, 
1902),  pp.  207  f. 


232 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


The  distinction  of  establishing  the  first  colony  falls  to  one  Dr. 
Brougnes,  who  in  1853  made  a contract  with  the  provincial  gov- 
ernment of  Corrientes.  His  guiding  ideal,  he  said,  like  a good 
utopian,  was  “ the  extinction  of  European  agricultural  pauper- 
ism.”1 Unluckily  his  own  colony,  planted  in  1856,  itself  soon 
became  extinct.  The  first  permanent  colony  was  founded  at 
Esperanza  in  Santa  Fe,in  1856  , by  A.  Castellanos,  whose  carefully 
devised  contract  with  the  provincial  government  became  a widely 
followed  model.2  Its  success,  advertisement  abroad,  the  new 
constitutional  guarantees,  and  other  favoring  conditions  quick- 
ened the  pace  of  colonization.  In  the  next  two  years  were  begun 
San  Carlos  and  San  Geronimo.  By  1872  there  were  44  colonies  in 
Santa  Fe,  by  1895,  365.  In  Entre  Rios,  San  Jose  was  founded  in 
1857,  but  success,  slower  to  come  than  in  Santa  Fe,  only  followed 
the  establishment  of  the  third  colony,  in  1871;  by  1895,  there 
were  184  colonies  in  the  province.  In  Cordoba,  a little  less  fertile 
than  its  eastern  neighbor,  Santa  Fe,  and  dependent  upon  rail- 
roads in  the  absence  of  such  a natural  highway  as  the  Parana 
River,  colonization  had  to  wait  on  the  development  of  Santa  Fe. 
The  year  1870  saw  the  establishment  of  Fas  Tortugas;  a new 
colonization  law  of  1871,  generous  in  its  terms,  led  to  the  found- 
ing of  Sampacho  in  1875;  and  by  1895  there  were  146  colonies  in 
Cordoba.  The  settlement  of  this  province  was  largely  the  fruit 
of  a westward  movement  of  the  population  of  Santa  Fe.  In  1895 
there  were  in  all  Argentina  735  colonies,  of  which  20  were  of 
national  origin.  Their  combined  area  exceeded  6.000,000  hec- 
tares.3 For  no  later  date  have  I seen  summary  figures,  but  it 
is  certain  that  colonization  has  marched  forward.4 

Buenos  Aires  has  never  had  a colonization  history.  Always  a 
region  of  great  estates,  always  eminently  fitted  for  pasture,  it  had 

1 Citations  from  Brougnes’  writings  are  made  by  A.  Peyret,  Une  visile  anx 
colonies  de  la  Republique  Argentine  (Paris,  1889),  p.  116.  By  1872  there  were  4 
colonies  in  Corrientes,  by  1895, 16;  but  it  is  a province  that  has  never  been  broadly 
colonized. 

2 Its  text  is  reproduced  by  Alsina,  La  inmigracion  europea,  pp.  160-167. 

3 Segundo  censo,  i,  pp.  660  ff. 

4 P.  Walle  {V  Argentine  telle  quelle  est,  Paris,  1913,  p.  480)  reproduces  an  official 
statement  to  the  effect  that  the  Cordoba  colonies  had  risen  to  550,  of  which  perhaps 


ARGENTINA.  AN  ECONOMIC  RENAISSANCE  233 


become  the  prime  grazing  province,  just  as  Santa  Fe  had  become 
the  cereal  region.  The  first  result  of  the  Roca  campaign  against 
the  Indians  in  1878  was  enormously  to  increase  the  area  in 
eslancias,  on  which  cattle  and  sheep  were  raised  almost  exclu- 
sively for  meat,  hides,  and  wool,  while  butter  and  milk  were 
scarcely  to  be  had.  The  success  of  other  provinces  in  coloniza- 
tion led  Buenos  Aires  in  1887  to  enact  a law  concerning  so-called 
centros  agricolos , in  the  hope  of  developing  small-lot  cultivation 
near  the  railway  stations.  Because  of  its  ponderous  machinery 

100  had  ceased  to  exist.  Cf.  also,  on  Santa  Fe  and  Cordoba,  A.  de  Zettiry,  Manuale 
dell’  emigrante  italiano  all’  Argentina  (prepared  on  official  commission  and  pub- 
lished, Rome,  19-),  p.  152. 

Numerous  works  dealing  with  the  foundation  and  history  of  the  Argentine 
colonies  have  been  published,  among  which  the  following  are  important:  — V.  Mar- 
tin de  Moussy,  Description  geographique  et  statistique  de  la  Confederation  Argentine 
(3  vols.,  Paris,  i860),  ii,  pp.  340-384,  iii  entire  — the  author,  who  had  lived  for 
eighteen  years  in  Argentina,  wrote  this  book  upon  an  official  commission;  C.  Beck- 
Bernard,  La  Republique  Argentine  (Lausanne,  1865),  pp.  190-230  — Beck-Bernard 
had  been  the  founder  and  director  of  the  San  Carlos  colony;  Comision  de  Inmi- 
gracion  de  Buenos  Aires,  La  Republica  Argentina,  sus  colonias  agricolas,  ferro- 
carriles,  navegacion,  comercio,  riqueza  territorial,  etc.  (Buenos  Aires,  1866),  pp.  3- 
19;  R.  Napp,  La  Republique  Argentine  (Buenos  Aires,  1876),  ch.  xxiv;  G.  Lonfat, 
Les  colonies  agricoles  de  la  Republique  Argentine,  decrites  apres  cinq  annees  de 
sejour  (Lausanne,  1879),  — pp.  53-94  are  a description  of  the  colonies  and  of  the 
condition  of  the  colonists,  pp.  95-165  reproduce  letters  from  many  colonists;  E. 
S.  Zeballos,  Descripcidn  amena  de  la  Republica  Argentina  (3  vols,  Buenos  Aires, 
1883),  ii,  chs.  v-xiii;  G.  Carrasco,  Descripcidn  geografica  y esladistica  de  la  provincia 
de  Santa-Fc  (4th  ed.,  Buenos  Aires,  1886),  ch.  xxi;  Guilaine,  op.  cit.  (1887),  — a 
valuable  detailed  survey;  Peyret,  op.  cit.  (1889),  — one  of  the  most  useful  of  all 
accounts  (Peyret  was  the  founder  and  a director  of  the  San  Jose  colony,  and  the 
national  inspector  of  colonies);  S.  J.  Albarracin,  Bosquejo  historico,  politico  y econo- 
mico  de  la  provincia  de  Cordoba  (Buenos  Aires,  1889),  pp.  143-214  — an  admirable 
survey;  G.  Jannone,  L’emigrazione  italiana  nell'  Argentina  (Naples,  1891),  pp.  13- 
89;  Republica  Argentina,  La  provincia  de  Entre  Rios  (Parana,  1893),  pp.  371-455, — 
written  under  the  direction  of  a commission  appointed  by  the  governor  of  Entre 
Rios;  Republica  Argentina,  Segundo  censo,  iii,  pp.  xxxii-xxxvi;  Alsina,  La  inmigra- 
cion  europea  (1898),  Part  ii;  M.  E.  Rfo,  La  colonizacion  en  Cordoba  en  i8g8-i8gg 
(Buenos  Aires,  1899),  — an  official  publication;  M.  E.  Rfo  and  L.  Achaval,  Geo- 
graf'tade  la  provincia  de  Cordoba  (2  vols.,  Buenos  Aires,  1904),  esp.  ii,  pp.  1-191, — an 
official  publication;  E.  Troisi,  L’ Argentina  agricola,  Cordova  e le  sue  colonie,  Buenos 
Aires  and  Cordoba,  1904;  Republica  Argentina,  Ministerio  de  Agriculture,  Memo - 
ria,  Buenos  Aires  (annual);  A.  Franceschini,  L’emigrazione  italiana  nell’  America 
del  Sud  (Rome,  1908),  pp.  298-446;  Zuccarini,  op.  cit.  (1910),  pp.  227-273;  F.  T. 
Molinas,  La  colonizacion  argentina  y las  industrias  agropecuarias  1810-igio  (Buenos 
Aires,  1910),  pp.  45~97- 


234 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


and  its  dependence  on  an  inflated  credit  system,  especially 
created,  the  experiment  collapsed  miserably  in  the  panic  to 
whose  virulence  it  had  surely  contributed.1 

In  quite  other  ways  came  the  prodigious  agricultural  develop- 
ment of  Buenos  Aires.  For  grazing,  the  native  pas  to  duro  served 
less  well  than  the  marvellous  alfalfa.  Since  this  crop  could  best  be 
grown  after  three,  four  or  five  years  of  other  crops,  lands  were  let 
to  farmers  who  would  sow  it  after  the  last  wheat.  Through  just 
this  temporary  device  an  enormous  cereal  output  resulted.  In- 
cidentally, however,  a true  competition  developed  between  agri- 
culture and  grazing,  and  over  large  areas  the  former  prevailed. 
While  the  Santa  Fe  wheat  output  remained  stationary  after  1895, 
that  of  Buenos  Aires,  between  1895  and  1908,  increased  fourfold.2 
In  later  years  has  come  a small  but  hopeful  breaking-up  of  the 
larger  estates. 

Again,  what  part  had  the  Italians  in  the  agricultural  rebirth  of 
Argentina  ? The  evidence  has  many  facets.  “ The  first  Italian 
agriculturists  who  came  to  the  province,”  wrote  the  director  of  the 
Santa  Fe  census,  “ settled  in  the  colonies,  prospered,  and  sent  for 
their  relatives  and  friends;  these  in  turn  did  the  same,  and  so 
began  the  great  current  of  immigration.”  3 A decree  of  1873  de- 
clared: “ The  Italian  immigration  which  comes  to  the  republic  no 
longer  needs  to  be  induced  by  official  agents,  since  each  of  the 
thousands  of  Italians  settled  here  is  a living  and  eloquent  example 
of  the  incomparable  advantages  which  this  country  offers  . . . ”; 
it  regarded  as  sufficient  the  agency  in  Florence,  and  established  an 
agency  in  Alsace-Lorraine,  just  previously  lost  to  France.  Of  this 
decree,  the  ulterior  purpose  was  “ to  mix  the  immigration.”  4 But 
few  Alsatians  came,  and  the  Italians  flocked  even  more.  Esti- 
mates made  at  various  times  of  the  population  of  the  colonies  to 

1 Perhaps  the  best  that  can  be  said  for  this  law  was  written  by  G.  Godio,  in 
his  U America  net  suoi  primi  faltori  (Florence,  1893),  pp.  466-472.  See  also  A. 
Gomez  Langenheim,  Colonization  en  la  Republica  Argentina  (Buenos  Aires,  1906), 
ch.  xv. 

2 For  sundry  comparisons,  see  Agricultural  and  Pastoral  Census,  ii,  pp.  vi-ix; 
cf.  p.  95. 

3 Primer  censo,  i,  p.  liv.  4 Alsina,  La  inmigracion  europea,  pp.  6S  f. 


ARGENTINA.  AN  ECONOMIC  RENAISSANCE  235 


which  they  went  reveal  the  presence  of  many  Argentines.  But 
Argentines  of  Spanish  or  mixed  stock  seldom  entered  the  colonies. 
Where  a hundred  Italians  settled,  there,  after  some  years,  might 
be  a hundred  Italians  and  a hundred  Argentines  — the  Italians’ 
children.  When  we  read  that  in  the  early  eighties  there  were  in  the 
Santa  Fe  colonies  26,925  Argentines  and  25,378  Italians  among 
64,504  persons  for  whom  particulars  could  be  had,  the  likelihood 
is  that  three-quarters  of  the  colonists  were  Italian.1  In  1907  an 
Italian  emigration  inspector  reported  that  in  a great  district  about 
Rosario,  including  the  best  lands  in  Santa  Fe,  “ the  agricultural 
population  is  made  up  almost  wholly  of  Italians.”2  In  the  colonies 
of  Entre  Rios,  usually  passed  over  in  accounts  of  the  Italians  in 
Argentina,  Italian  proprietors,  according  to  official  records  of 
1896,  were  about  one-sixth  of  all.3 

In  Cordoba,  where  figures  are  available  for  the  heads  of  families 
settled  in  the  colonies,  three-quarters  were  found  to  be  Italian, 
mostly  Piedmontese.4  In  1905,  there  were  in  the  nine  colonized 
departments  of  Cordoba,  in  which  the  wealth  of  the  province  was 
chiefly  produced,  13,435  colonial  families,  of  which  10,291  were 
Italian,  1737  Argentine  (including  many  of  Italian  stock),  362 
Spanish,  346  French,  244  German,  224  Swiss,  134  Austrian,  45 
Russian,  and  34  Belgian.5  In  1906,  948  new  families  entered  the 
Cordoban  colonies  and  of  these  “ almost  all  ” were  Italian.  In  the 
department  of  San  Justo,  in  1905,  were  3508  colonial  families  of 
which  3086  were  Italian  and  191  Argentine.  And  on  the  extensive 
lands  irrigated  from  the  San  Roque  reservoir  most  of  the  colonists 
were  found  to  be  Italians.6 

1 For  the  statistics,  see  Carrasco,  p.  238. 

2 U.  Tomezzoli,  “ L’ Argentina  e l’emigrazione  italiana,”  Boll.  Emig.  (1907, 
Nos.  16, 17;  1908,  No.  3),  1907,  No.  17,  p.  26.  That  the  wheat  production  of  Santa 
Fe  was  mainly  in  Italian  hands  was  the  position  taken  in  1904  by  an  Italian  parlia- 
mentary committee  dealing  with  emigration;  see  Boll.  Emig.,  1904,  No.  n,  p.  33. 

3 Zuccarini,  pp.  297-301. 

4 Rio  and  Achaval,  ii,  p.  179.  See  also  Rio,  p.  120.  For  still  later  figures,  cf. 
Walle,  p.  480.  Troisi  estimated  that  in  the  72  colonies  which  he  visited,  Italians 
were  79  per  cent  of  the  population  (p.  208). 

5 Figures  of  Direccion  General  de  Estadistica;  see  G.  Notari,  “ La  provincia  di 
Cordoba  e alcune  delle  sue  colonie  agricole,”  Emig.  e Col.,  1908,  iii ' p.  35. 

6 Ibid.,  pp.  36,  57,  64. 


236  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

Though  relatively  few  at  the  incipience  of  many  colonies,  the 
Italians  increased  disproportionately.  To  have  a number  of 
nationalities  well  represented  in  each  colony  at  the  outset  had 
been  a matter  of  policy.1  But  it  did  not  take  long  to  learn  that 
Germany,  France,  Switzerland,  Belgium,  and  the  other  countries 
were  less  amenable  sources  of  supply  than  Italy.  As  early  as 
1864  the  Italians  were  two-fifths  of  all  immigrants.  And  notwith- 
standing that  the  trip  from  Genoa  cost  two  hundred  francs  and 
lasted  between  sixty  and  seventy-five  days,  a swelling  throng  of 
Italians  deemed  the  venture  worth  while. 

Some  day  the  historian  will  fill  in  the  dramatic  details  of  the 
local  settlement  of  the  Italians,  which  we  here  may  only  sketch. 
The  first  colonies,  Esperanza  and  San  Geronimo,  were  begun 
mainly  by  Swiss  and  other  non-Italian  elements.  When,  by  1865, 
Esperanza  had  come  to  have  a population  of  1627,  only  23  of  these 
were  Italians;  and  in  San  Geronimo  they  numbered  only  10. 2 
In  San  Carlos,  however,  founded  almost  equally  early,  not  only 
were  Italian  settlers  at  the  outset  extremely  numerous,  but  they 
were  the  chief  factor  in  its  growth  as  well,  the  men  being  presently 
joined  by  their  wives  and  children.  It  contained,  in  1872,  480 
Italian  families  and  soon  was  the  chief  colony  of  Santa  Fe.3 
“Thousands”  were  there  when,  in  the  eighties,  the  sojourning 
de  Amicis  drew  his  charming  pictures  of  its  life  A Numerous 
Lombards  and  Piedmontese  made  Las  Tortugas  one  of  the  most 
successful  colonies.'  Guadalupe  and  Emilia  contained  many 
Italians;  likewise  Italiana,  Lago  de  Como,  Nueva  Roma,  Tos- 
cana, Villa  Casilda,  San  Jose  — the  latter  at  one  time  one  of  the 
largest  colonies.6  In  the  department  of  Castellanos  important 

] See,  e.g.,  Guilaine,  p.  119.  The  Comisi6n  de  Inmigracidn  de  Buenos  Aiies 
(pp.  3-19)  gives  many  detailed  illustrations. 

2 Comisidn  de  Inmigracion  de  Buenos  Aires,  p.  3.  Franceschini  (p.  240  errs 
in  claiming  that  Esperanza  was  settled  by  345  Italian  families  “ which  were  later 
joined  by  a few  other  families  of  Swiss  and  German  origin.”  The  Comision  reported 
that  there  were  335  families  of  six  or  eight  nationalities. 

3 Peyret,  p.  175;  Napp,  p.  489.  Zuccarini  (pp.  236-239)  reproduces  the  names 
of  the  first  colonists. 

4 E.  de  Amicis,  In  America  (Rome,  1897),  p.  62.  Guilaine  (p.  140)  gives  its 
population  in  1884  as  3974. 

6 Zeballos,  ii,  p.  119;  Lonfat,  p.  59;  Zuccarini,  pp.  260-263. 

6 Beck-Bernard,  p.  203. 


ARGENTINA.  AN  ECONOMIC  RENAISSANCE  237 


groups  were  at  Garibaldi,  Iturraspe,  Rafaela,  and  Umberto  I.1 
In  Las  Colonias,  besides  San  Carlos  already  mentioned,  and 
Esperanza,  to  which  in  the  later  period  many  Italians  came, 
settlements  were  made  at  Bella  Italia,  Cavour,  Franck,  Nuevo 
Torino,  Reina  Margarita,  San  Augustin,  and  Tunas; 2 but  the 
entire  department  is  largely  Italian.  San  Pedro,  in  the  depart- 
ment of  General  Lopez,  was  founded  by  Italians;  Piamontesa 
and  Venado  Tuerto  received  many  of  them.3  Reconquista,  in  the 
like-named  department  and  its  neighbors  Avellaneda,  Piazza,  and 
Victor  Manuel  were  largely  Italian.  So  were  Ceres  in  San 
Cristobal,  Corondina,  Freyre,  and  Orono  in  San  Geronimo;  Ale- 
jandra  and  San  Janvier  in  San  Janvier.4  Piamonte  and  Crispi,  in 
San  Martin,  betray  their  origin  in  their  names.  So  do  Nueva 
Italia  and  Rey  Umberto  in  San  Lorenzo;  but  much  larger  settle- 
ments of  Italians  were  made  in  Candelaria,  Carcarana,  Bernstadt, 
and  Jesus  Maria. 

This  list  of  some  of  the  more  interesting  Italian  colonies  of 
Santa  Fe  is  far  from  exhaustive.  For  Cordoba  I will  name  only  a 
few:  Garibaldi,  Las  Tortugas,  San  Rafael,  Italiana,  San  Fran- 
cisco, Iturraspe,  Nueva  Udine,  La  Genovesa,  Velez  Sarsfeld, 
Ricasoli,  Caroya,  Canada  de  Gomez.  It  is  not  astonishing  that 
Troisi  should  claim  that  the  Italian  settlements  of  Santa  Fe  and 
Cordoba  have  transformed  the  country;  and  Scardin  that,  in 
those  provinces,  only  the  uniformity  of  the  landscape  prevents  the 
illusion  of  one’s  being  in  Italy  — the  Italy  of  Piedmont,  Venetia, 
and  Lombardy.5 

In  the  province  of  Entre  Rios,  Libertad  was  founded  by  Italians 
and  surveyed  and  administered  by  them,  Lombards  and  Vene- 
tians generally,  men  from  the  Italian  Tyrol.  Others  founded  and 

1 Peyret,  p.  146.  Troisi  (p.  263)  says  that  at  Iturraspe  Italian  families  were 
223  out  of  260.  See  also  A.  Rossi,  “ Note  e impressioni  di  un  viaggio  nel  distretto 
consolare  di  Rosario,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1914,  pp.  31-33. 

2 Lonfat,  pp.  68-74;  Parisi,  pp.  156  f. 

3 Troisi,  p.  269;  Rossi,  p.  45. 

4 Tomezzoli,  p.  26;  Peyret,  pp.  288,  296,  303;  Lonfat,  pp.  76  f.;  Rossi,  p.  30. 

6 F.  Scardin,  Vita  italiana  nelV  Argentina,  impressioni  e note  (2  vols.,  Buenos 
Aires,  1899, 1903),  ii,  p.  89;  Albarracin,  pp.  179-207;  Troisi,  pp.  178-435;  Peyret, 
p.  31 1 ; Tomezzoli,  pp.  21-26;  B.  Sarti,  “La  colonia  italiana  di  Marcos  Juarez,” 
Italica  Gens,  January-February,  1914,  pp.  44-53. 


238 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


mainly  developed  the  colony  “3  de  Febrero.”  In  Caseros  and  in 
Hernandarias  were  many,  and  in  Crespo,  Cerrito,  and  San  Jose. 
Villa  Urquiza  was  one  of  the  older  settlements.  In  Municipal,  in 
the  department  Parana,  and  in  the  like-named  colony  of  Negoya, 
were  important  groups.  There  was  the  usual  assortment  of  Ital- 
ian colonial  names  — Nueva  Roma,  Garibaldina.1 

Even  in  Buenos  Aires,  despite  its  lack  of  a colonization  policy, 
were  robust  Italian  communities.  So  in  Las  Flores,  in  Maipu,  in 
Tandil  — once  mainly  a Danish  settlement,  but  now  containing, 
strange  to  say,  many  Calabrians  - — so  in  Baradero,  Tres  Arro- 
yos, Chivilcoy.  In  the  last-named  place,  Italians  are  especially 
numerous;  outside  the  town,  “it  is  very  rare  to  encounter 
anyone  who  is  not  Italian.”  2 Chivilcoy  is  a great  grain  region, 
as  is  the  entire  district  Olavarria,  the  most  important  in  fact  in 
the  province  and  developed  essentially  by  Italians.3 

But  let  us  turn  again  from  the  trees  to  the  forest.  The  astonish- 
ing development  of  the  broad  agricultural  provinces  of  Argentina 
has  been  mainly  the  achievement  of  Italian  toil.  The  quick 
bound  of  Santa  Fe  when  the  heavy  Italian  immigration  halted 
there;  the  subsequent  rise  of  Cordoba,  to  the  west,  when  Italians 
began  to  remove  thither  from  Santa  Fe,  and  the  recien  ll-egado 
also  went  there;  the  attainment  of  primacy  in  cereal  growing  by 
Buenos  Aires,  after  1895,  when  Italians  migrated  there  from 
Santa  Fe  and  Cordoba,  and  the  newer  immigrants  also  chose  that 
province ; these  changes  were  largely  independent  of  the  activity 
of  the  older  stocks.  Even  the  more  recent  agricultural  expansion 
of  the  Territory  of  the  Pampas  has  been  accompanied  by  the 
arrival  of  Italians. 

Not  unnaturally  it  is  the  Italians  themselves  who  have  most 
acclaimed  this  performance.4  But  international  testimony  is  not 

Peyret,  pp.  57,  63,  96,  101;  Zuccarini,  pp.  299-301;  Rep.  Arg.,  La  proviticia 
de  Entre  Rios,  pp.  381-427. 

2 Scardin,  ii,  p.  63. 

3 Besides  Scardin,  see  Zuccarini,  p.  295;  Comision  de  Inmigracion,  p.  19; 
Kaerger,  i,  p.  477. 

4 For  example,  Professor  Einaudi:  “ It  may  be  the  vaunt  of  the  Italians  if  Argen- 
tina is  today  one  of  the  greatest  producers  of  grain.”  Un  principe  mercante  (Turin, 


ARGENTINA.  AN  ECONOMIC  RENAISSANCE  239 


wanting.  The  German  Kaerger,  whose  study  of  Argentine  agri- 
culture is  one  of  the  best,  wrote : “ It  is  above  all  the  Italians  who, 
in  the  newer  lands,  as  renters  and  share  cultivators,  are  pioneers  in 
farming  and  who  with  the  little  capital  at  their  command  make 
the  utmost  effort  to  cultivate  the  largest  possible  area.  It  is  to 
this  mania  for  producing  (Produktionsf  anatismus)  on  the  part  of 
the  great  masses  of  immigrant  Italians  that  Argentina  primarily 
owes  the  rapid  development  of  her  agriculture  in  the  last  decade.” 1 
The  Argentines  Rio  and  Achaval,  writing  officially  for  Cordoba, 
ascribe  to  colonization  directly  and  indirectly  the  magnificent 
cereal  efflorescence  of  their  province,  and  recognize,  among  the 
colonists,  the  great  preponderance  of  Italians  (chiefly  Pied- 
montese) and  their  native  children.2  The  Spanish  Molina  Nadal, 
once  himself  a colonizer,  assigns  to  Italian  labor  the  most  impor- 
tant part  in  Argentine  agriculture.3  And  a French  visitor,  Huret, 
attributes  the  new  riches  of  agriculture  to  the  valiant  toil  of  the 
North  Italians.  It  is  lucky,  he  says,  that  they  came,  for  it  could 
not  be  hoped  that  the  native  Argentine  would  condescend  to  labor 
in  the  fields.4 

Outside  of  the  cereal  and  flax  provinces,  mainstay  of  Argentine 
farming,  the  Italians  have  counted  for  less.  Yet  even  in  the 
Chubut  and  the  Chaco  they  have  made  important  settlements, 
and  in  the  Neuquen  many  have  received  concessions  of  vast  areas, 
still  little  utilized.5  In  Tucuman  they  have  raised  sugar.  For 
many  years  they  have  been  established  in  the  ancient  Cuyo 

1900),  p.  40.  Cf.  the  reports,  summarized  in  Rivista  Coloniale  for  July  25,  1910 
(pp.  231-233),  of  F.  Martini,  who  journeyed  through  the  Argentine  for  the  Corriere 
della  Sera;  also  the  statement  of  G.  Ceppi,  who  knew  the  Argentine  well,  in  his 
Guida  dell’  emigrante  italiano  alia  Repubblica  Argentina  (Florence,  1901),  p.  49. 

1 K.  Kaerger,  Landwirtschaft  und  Kolonisation  im  spanischen  Amerika  (2  vols., 
Leipsig,  1901),  i,  p.  924. 

2 Geografia,  ii,  pp.  164,  179. 

3 E.  Molina  Nadal,  El  emigrante  in  America  (Madrid,  1913),  p.  226. 

4 J.  Huret,  De  Buenos-Aires  an  Gran  Chaco  (Paris,  1912),  pp.  441,  447.  Cf.  also 
L.  Albertini,  according  to  whom  the  Italians  “ have  been  the  principal,  the  first 
clearers  of  the  land  ” {L’ Argentine  sans  bluff  ni  chantage,  Paris,  1911,  i,  p.  157); 
and  an  English  visitor,  J.  A.  Hammerton  ( The  Real  Argentine — Notes  and  Impres- 
sions, New  York,  1915,  p.  292). 

6 Fratelli  Parato,  Territorio  del  Neuquen  e la  Svizzera  Argentina,  Turin,  1911. 


240 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


provinces.  In  San  Luis  a few  have  grown  sugar  and  tobacco. 
In  San  Juan,  they  own  or  rent  a goodly  number  of  vineyards. 
But  it  is  in  vine-growing  Mendoza  that  true  distinction  again  has 
come  to  them. 

Although  the  Mendoza  census  of  1909  revealed  fewer  than 
19,000  Italians  in  the  province  (omitting  their  Argentine-born 
descendants),  these  were  about  one-eleventh  of  the  population.1 
Largely,  while  no  figures  can  be  given,  they  own  and  work  the 
vineyards,  seconded  by  Andalusian  Spaniards.  In  the  irrigated 
section,  the  grounds  they  have  cultivated  are  impressive  in  extent. 
Viscount  Bryce,  after  a visit,  wrote: 

Vine  culture  is  in  the  hands  of  the  Italians,  who  have  settled  here  in  large 
numbers,  and  brought  with  them  their  skill  in  wine  making.  . . . The 
wine  made  here  is  of  common  quality,  intended  for  the  humbler  part  of  the 
Argentine  population.  . . . Nearly  all  the  country  is  supplied  from  Men- 
doza because  eastern  Argentina  is  ill  fitted  for  viticulture.  The  vineyards, 
interspersed  with  meadows  of  bright  blue-green  alfalfa,  give  some  beauty 
to  the  oasis,  though  the  vines  are  mostly  trained  on  sticks,  not  made  to  climb 
the  poplar  or  mulberry  as  they  do  in  North  Italy.  . . . [These  Italians]  are 
contributing  effectively  to  the  wealth  of  the  country.2 

They  have  introduced  their  own  varieties  of  grape,  not,  however, 
to  the  exclusion  of  French  varieties  and  a Spanish  kind  used  for 
eating.3  And  it  is  said  that,  many  years  ago,  when  the  wine  in- 
dustry was  declining  because  of  technical  difficulties  at  the  vintage 
time,  a Venetian,  one  Tomba,  devised  the  means  of  resuscitating 
the  industry.4 

Thus  far  we  have  regarded  immigration  into  Argentina  as  the 
Federal  Constitution  has  regarded  it  — as  a means  to  national 
development.  But  the  thronging  Italians  have  had  a Constitu- 
tion of  their  own,  which  has  pressed  them  to  seek  their  private 

1 Censo  general  de  la  provincia  de  Mendoza  (Buenos  Aires,  1910),  p.  vi. 

2 J.  Bryce,  South  America  — Observations  and  Impressions  (New  York,  J912), 
pp.  263,  265.  Cf.  Walle,  pp.  444  f.;  Scardin,  ii,  ch.  viii;  J.  A.  Zahm,  Through 
South  America's  Southland  (New  York  and  London,  1916),  p.  252;  Tomezzoli, 
op.  cit.,  Boll.  Emig.,  1907,  No.  17,  pp.  43-47;  G.  Lombroso-Ferrero,  Nell’  America 
Meridionale  (Milan,  1908),  Pt.  iii,  ch.  v;  A.  de  Gubernatis,  L’ Argentina  (Florence, 
1898),  pp.  120-137,  164-166. 

3 Molina  Nadal,  p.  208. 

4 Lombroso-Ferrero,  p.  313. 


ARGENTINA.  AN  ECONOMIC  RENAISSANCE  241 


gain.  What  fortune  have  they  encountered  in  Argentina  ? What 
has  it  meant  to  be  a colonist  ? 

According  as  the  lands  disposed  of  by  private  persons  or  by 
companies  had  unusual  advantages,  natural  or  acquired,  they 
commanded  unusual  prices.  But  the  mode  of  disposal  was  fairly 
uniform  over  most  of  the  country,  differing  chiefly  in  such  regards 
as  the  number  of  annual  payments  demanded  or  the  amount  of 
the  advances  allowed.  In  a typical  instance,  the  colony  of  Her- 
nandarias,  each  “ concession  ” (of  34  hectares)  was  worth  from  400 
to  600  pesos  ($400-600)  and  was  to  be  paid  for  in  five  equal  annual 
payments,  without  interest.1  If  a harvest  failed,  the  payment 
might  be  postponed,  but  six  per  cent  interest  was  then  charged 
upon  the  unpaid  portion.  Adjacent  to  each  lot  sold,  another  lot 
was  kept  vacant,  to  be  offered  to  the  same  buyer  by  preference 
and  at  the  original  price.  The  company  supplied  gratis  all  the 
building  materials;  and  advanced  tools,  instruments,  and  seeds  for 
one  year,  to  be  paid  for  in  annual  sums  like  the  land  itself.  If 
grazing  was  suitable,  animals  also  were  usually  advanced. 

The  colonist  first  built  his  rancho,  or  living  house,  probably 
hiring  others  to  help  him.  Then  he  cultivated  one  part  of  his  lot 
and  placed  his  animals  on  the  rest.  Wheat  must  be  sown  before 
the  end  of  August,  and  harvested  in  December,  Indian  corn  a 
little  later.  Millers  would  buy  the  crop  directly.  Vegetables  and 
fruits  would  be  sold  in  the  towns;  and  animal  products  were  also 
easily  disposed  of.  From  all  direct  taxes,  for  from  six  to  ten  years, 
the  colonist  was  exempt.  Not  uncommonly  he  was  able  to  pay  off 
his  annual  charges  and  also  the  advances  in  as  little  as  three 
years. 

In  the  few  national  colonies,  the  chief  differences  from  the  pro- 
cedure at  Hernandarias  were  that  the  first  hundred  colonists  re- 
ceived their  land  free,  while  later  colonists  paid  a low  price,  and 
advances  were  not  made  at  all. 

Whether  the  immigrant  entered  a private  colony,  as  usually 
happened,  or  a national  colony,  he  required,  or  at  least  found  most 

1 See  Guilaine,  pp.  148  S.  For  a broader  treatment  see  J.  A.  Alsina,  Poblacion, 
tierras  y production  (Buenos  Aires,  1903),  chs.  v,  vi. 


242 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


convenient,  a small  capital.  With  the  increasing  population  and 
development  of  the  country  and  the  rising  prices  of  land,  this 
became  an  urgent  need.  And  it  became  indispensable  when 
finally  an  advance  cash  payment  on  the  land  was  required.1  Not 
alone  the  money  cost,  but  other  conditions  made  the  acquisition 
of  land  and  its  subsequent  retention  difficult.  A fair  previous 
knowledge  of  the  art  of  agriculture  was  desirable;  for  certainly 
the  special  skill  needed  in  the  new  country  would  come  most 
readily  to  experienced  cultivators.  But  among  the  Italians  were 
many  whose  deficiency  in  this  regard  was  serious. 

Since  a single  man  could  not  expect  to  carry  on  a farm  unaided, 
he  either  would  have  to  hire  helpers  or  would  need  a family.  The 
first  alternative  demanded  free  capital,  which  the  Italian  usually 
did  not  have  — and  wages  are  not  low  in  a thriving  new  country. 
Nor  at  the  outset  was  the  second  alternative  typically  feasible. 
Most  immigrants  were  men.  Their  preponderance  is  strikingly 
reflected  in  the  Argentine  censuses;  for  example,  in  1858,  nine  out 
of  eleven  Italians  in  Santa  Fe  were  males;  in  1869,  three  out  of 
four;  and  in  the  general  foreign  population  of  Santa  Fe  in  1887, 
two  out  of  three.2  These  men  must  either  avoid  agriculture  or 
enter  it  otherwise  than  as  heads  of  establishments.  Such  precise 
information  as  I have  come  upon  confirms  the  inference  that  the 
Italian  farmers  were  not  usually  proprietors.  In  Sante  Fe  in 
1887  Italian  landed  proprietors  were  5264,  or  less  than  a tenth  of 
the  Italian  population,3  — a rate,  however,  be  it  noted  in  passing, 
half  again  as  great  as  that  of  the  Argentine  element.  It  is  in  the 
northern  part  of  Santa  Fe  that  the  largest  proportion  of  the  popu- 
lation have  been  landowners,  and  the  least  proportion  of  the  popu- 
lation Italians,  while  the  middle  and  southern  parts,  thickly 
settled  with  Italians,  have  had  relatively  few  proprietors.4  In 
Cordoba,  by  1905,  though  the  Italians  were  four-fifths  of  all 

1 Unlike  the  Italians,  the  early  Germans  usually  came  with  capital  and  bought 
land.  Kaerger  observes  that  such  investments  were  often  made  before  conditions 
were  understood  and  adds  that  the  Germans  often  learned  the  truth  of  the  maxim, 
“ Mutterpfennige  bringen  im  freinden  Lande  niemals  Gluck.”  Op.  cit.,  i,  p.  21. 

2 Primer  censo,  i,  pp.  xxix,  xxxiii,  lx. 

2 Ibid.,  i,  p.  cx. 

4 Kaerger,  i,  pp.  913  f. 


ARGENTINA.  AN  ECONOMIC  RENAISSANCE  243 


proprietors,  the  total  number  who  fully  owned  their  lands  was 
only  4568. 1 According  to  the  national  census  of  1895,  somewhat 
more  than  an  eighth  of  all  Italian  agriculturists  were  proprietors, 
but  their  proportion  is  again  higher  than  that  of  any  other  im- 
portant group. 

How  then  were  most  Italians  occupied  ? Argentine  estates 
have  been  large,  larger  than  a single  family  could  cultivate,  even 
though  the  method  of  farming  has  been  adapted  to  cheap  land. 
From  early  days  a kind  of  progression  has  been  observed  among 
the  Italian  agriculturists,  and  it  is  observable  still.2  First  a peon 
or  day  laborer,  the  immigrant  may  become  (especially  in  Cordoba 
and  Santa  Fe)  a mediero  or  metayer,  then  an  arrendatario  or  renter, 
and  finally,  when  his  evolution  is  completed,  a proprietor.  Gen- 
erally, says  Frescura’s  wise  guide,  “ one  becomes  a proprietor 
only  after  one  has  worked  hard.  Even  when  circumstances  have 
been  propitious,  one  must  first  be  a day  laborer,  then  a share  cul- 
tivator, then  a renter.  And  when  the  immigrant  has  passed 
through  these  stages  he  will  have  learned  so  much  of  the  ways  of 
the  country  that  he  will  no  longer  need  this  guide.”  3 

The  multitudes  of  day  laborers,  wanting  capital,  need  know 
little  of  the  value  of  lands,  the  art  of  agriculture,  the  ways  of  mar- 
kets. Where  they  are  to  perform  their  services  may  be  informa- 
tion thrust  upon  them;  at  work,  they  have  only  to  obey  the 
behests  of  their  taskmasters.  Sagacity  and  forethought,  though 
counting  for  little,  yet  avail  somewhat  more  than  for  men  of  their 
occupation  in  Italy;  for  the  venture  is  larger. 

Of  the  diverse  types  of  day  laborer,  none  is  more  hardy  or  more 
picturesque  than  the  golondrina,  swallow,  as  the  Argentines  call 

1 Notari,  in  Emig.  e Col.,  iiiu,  p.  57.  Tomezzoli  (Boll.  Emig.,  1907,  No.  17, 
p.  82)  holds  that  in  Buenos  Aires  province  only  a fifth  were  proprietors. 

2 I know  no  better  descriptions  of  the  types  of  agricultural  labor  than  those  con- 
tained in  two  guide  books  for  immigrant  Italians,  both  admirable:  B.  Frescura, 
Argenlina-guxda  (Milan,  1909),  pp.  75-88,  and  de  Zettiry,  op.  cit.,  pp.  157-163.  The 
former  was  published  under  the  auspices  of  the  Societa  Dante  Alighieri  and  the 
Istituto  Agricolo  Coloniale  Italiano,  the  latter  by  the  R.  Commissariato  dell’  Emi- 
grazione.  Cf.  L.  Colombetti,  “ Dati  ed  appunti  sulle  condizioni  degli  agricoltori 
italiani  nella  regione  di  Morteros,”  in  Emig.  e Col.,  iii",  pp.  98-106. 

3 Frescura,  p.  88. 


244  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

him,  and  also  — when  they  are  not  thinking  of  compliments  — the 
“ linger  a.”  Upon  him,  to  no  mean  degree,  Argentine  agriculture 
depends.  Bag  upon  his  shoulder  containing  a few  clothes,  he 
makes  his  way  from  colony  to  colony.  “ He  is  no  colonist,  he  has 
never  put  plow  to  the  Argentine  soil,  he  has  no  house,  has  nothing 
— his  sack  is  his  patrimony,  fatigue  purchases  his  sustenance,  a 
modest  saving  is  his  hope.”  1 Having  left  Italy  in  October  or 
November,  the  Italian  harvest  finished,  he  is  likely  to  proceed 
first,  as  a harvest  hand,  to  the  flax  and  wheat  fields  of  northern 
Cordoba  and  Santa  Fe,  and  next,  in  December  and  January,  to 
the  wheat  fields  of  the  province  of  Buenos  Aires  and  of  southern 
Cordoba.  In  February,  and  perhaps  till  as  late  as  April,  he  gath- 
ers corn  in  Buenos  Aires,  thence  returns  to  Italy,  by  a sea  journey 
that  sometimes  is  as  brief  as  twelve  days,  to  engage  in  the  spring 
planting  — has  he  not  aptly  been  compared  to  the  Laestry- 
gonian  herdsman  of  the  Odyssey  who  might  earn  a double  wage  by 
watching  over  his  charge  day  and  night  ? Since  his  labor  is  un- 
skilled, he  is  hired  with  others  in  a gang.  Food  and  lodging  are 
provided  for  him.  perhaps  a measure  of  wine.  When  the  gang's 
remuneration  is  by  the  hectare  — as  often  in  the  flax  and  wheat 
fields  — the  head  of  the  gang  pays  the  wages;  but  ofttimes  there 
is  a day  rate,  or  a rate  per  sack  of  corn  collected.  Out  of  the  high 
harvest  wages  he  may  take  back  to  Italy,  if  the  season  has  been 
kind,  350-400  Italian  lire,  and  that  is  a sum  large  enough  to 
tempt  away  thousands  of  men  annually,  including  some  who  have 
crossed  the  ocean  a score  of  times  or  more. 

The  farm  hands  of  a second  class  remain  within  Argentina. 
During  the  winter  (July-September)  they  may  be  unemployed 
and  live  poorly,  or  they  may  be  general  unskilled  laborers  — 
porters,  hodcarriers,  and  the  like  — in  the  cities  and  seaports.  In 
March  and  April  they  go  to  the  fields  for  the  plowing,  or  from  May 
to  July  to  sow  flax  and  wheat;  but  most  enter  the  colonies  in  the 
summer  months  for  the  harvests  and  the  threshing. 

Another  group,  with  their  families,  five  permanently  on  or  near 
the  fields  they  cultivate.  In  the  slacker  periods  they  do  work  of  a 
miscellaneous,  often  non-agricultural  sort.  In  the  harvesting  and 

1 Scardin,  ii,  pp.  108  f.  See  also  Molina  Nadal,  pp.  229-236. 


ARGENTINA.  AN  ECONOMIC  RENAISSANCE  245 


threshing  season,  their  expertness  in  handling  farm  machinery 
and  their  habituation  to  the  summer  heat  give  them  a place  of 
preference  over  others.  Of  this  type  a variant  is  the  tantero.  For 
cultivating  one  part  of  an  estate  he  receives,  instead  of  a wage, 
and  in  addition  to  food  and  lodging,  the  full  title  to  what  he  culti- 
vates on  another  part,  allotted  to  him.  If  he  has  a family,  his  own 
allotment  may  be  14-16  hectares,  otherwise  5-10;  and  it  may 
be  even  less  if  he  reserves  the  right  to  hire  out  by  the  day  at  cer- 
tain times.  He  may  clear  300-600  pesos  a year. 

When  the  day  laborer,  especially  the  tantero,  has  acquired  a 
knowledge  of  agricultural  conditions  and  methods,  and  saved 
some  money,  he  may  rise  a step  in  the  economic  scale  and  become 
a share  cultivator  — not  yet  a renter,  for  he  cannot  afford  to  pay 
the  high  sum  demanded  for  the  large  farms  which  are  here  the 
rule.  The  advantage  to  the  cultivator  is  accentuated  if  he  has  a 
numerous  family,  since  then  he  need  hire  no  outside  help.  He 
makes  his  contract  for  one  year,  beginning  with  March,  but  some- 
times for  two  or  three  years.  The  proprietor  supplies  the  land 
free  of  taxes,  a dwelling,  a well,  animals  for  farm  operations  and 
general  transportation,  tools,  machinery,  wagons.  He  advances 
the  seeds,  and  usually  arranges  a credit  for  the  mediero  with  the 
almacen  (general  store).  The  mediero  performs  all  the  ordinary 
labor,  sustains  half  the  threshing  expense,  and  pays  for  his  living 
out  of  his  own  pocket.  One-half  the  gross  product  goes  to  the 
proprietor.  If  the  harvest  fails,  the  net  result  of  the  year  may  be 
a debt  with  the  merchant,  “ as  moreover  happens  in  all  coun- 
tries,” adds  the  consoling  guide  already  quoted.1  But  let  us  sup- 
pose that  the  harvests  have  been  good  and  the  mediero  thrifty,  or 
the  newly  arrived  immigrant  a man  of  accumulated  savings  and 
superior  understanding.  Then  he  enters  upon  the  more  specula- 
tive course  of  renting  his  land.  His  lease,  of  one,  two,  three  or 
more  concesiones,  never  runs  less  than  three  years,  usually  four 
or  five,  rarely  nine.  Besides  the  land,  the  proprietor  supplies 
materials  for  the  construction  of  a house  and  the  packing  facilities 

1 Frescura,  p.  Si.  On  the  share  contract  see  also  Notari,  “La  provincia  di 
Cordoba,”  ha  Emig.  e Col.  ( cit .),  pp.  77-79. 


246  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

for  his  own  slice  of  the  harvest  (10-30  per  cent,  according  to  fer- 
tility of  soil,  degree  of  improvement,  distance  from  markets). 
Rarely  is  a money  rent  paid  — so  unpleasant  when  harvests  fail 
— but  its  rate  is  likely  to  be  2.50-5  pesos  paper  per  hectare. 
The  arrendatario  builds  the  house,  cultivates  at  least  two-thirds 
of  his  land,  harvests  his  crops  at  his  own  expense,  and  delivers  to 
the  proprietor  the  latter’s  share  of  the  product.  Since  the  product 
is  usually  destined  for  exportation,  it  seldom  happens  that  the 
land  is  more  than  thirty  miles  from  a railroad  station.1 

The  metayer  system  used  to  be  more  prevalent  than  it  has  been 
of  late  years.  To  it  and  to  the  fixed  rent  system,  much  of  the  cul- 
tivation of  Argentina,  especially  the  newer,  has  been  due.  A full 
generation  after  cereal  production  in  Santa  Fe  began,  three-fifths 
of  all  farming  establishments  were  conducted  in  these  two  ways.2 

In  Mendoza,  apart  from  their  ownership  of  many  vineyards, 
Italians  make  contracts  with  the  owners  to  gather  the  grapes, 
being  paid  for  the  weight  of  fruit  they  pick.  In  turn  they  often 
hire  natives  for  much  of  the  actual  work.  When  a new  vineyard 
is  to  be  formed,  the  land  is  let  for  a period  usually  of  seven  years; 
the  renter  plants  it,  receives  the  product  for  three  or  four  years, 
and,  for  rent,  pays  the  completed  vineyard  to  its  owner.  Among 
the  numerous  Italians  employed  in  the  vintage  operations  are 
many  building  workmen,  some  of  whom  have  come  from  Rosario 
and  Buenos  Aires. 

To  trace  the  channels  through  which  an  immigrant  may  steer 
his  way  to  affluence  in  Argentina  is  not  of  course  to  show  that 
affluence  has  been  attained.  In  so  complicated  a phenomenon  as 
emigration,  even  the  long  continuance  of  a stream  is  no  proof  that 
its  course  has  run  smoothly. 

Difficulties,  perplexities,  and  disillusionments  enough  there 
were  in  early  days.  San  Carlos  and  Las  Tortugas  were  not  ex- 
ceptional in  having  sanguinary  contests  with  Indians.  Sometimes 
for  years  on  end  there  were  droughts.  Hailstones  devastated  the 

1 A typical  rent-contract  is  given  textually  by  Notari,  pp.  80-83. 

2 F.  T.  Molinas,  Santa  Fe  agricola  — las  cosechas  de  i8g8-gg  y iSgg-igoo  (Buenos 
Aires,  1901),  p.  14.  Cf.  idem,  La  colonizacidn  argentine,  p.  142. 


ARGENTINA.  AN  ECONOMIC  RENAISSANCE 


247 


crops.  The  locusts  that  swarmed  irresistibly  southward  from  the 
recesses  of  the  Chaco  left  only  dead  ruin  in  their  path  — and  did 
not  San  Carlos  fight  their  invasions  seven  times  in  seven  years  ? 
How  few  must  have  been  the  Italians  who  had  not  been  born 
among  the  hills!  Here,  about  them,  was  a flat,  interminable 
expanse,  disheartening  above  all  to  the  women.  “ ‘Ah!  ’,  we  said 
in  the  first  days,  ‘ better  a crust  of  bread  in  Piedmont  than  to  be 
masters  here ! We  shall  not  stay  long  in  this  land ! ’ And  we  wept 
and  would  have  returned  to  Italy  at  once,  at  whatever  risk,  at 
whatever  sacrifice.”  So  spoke  the  women  to  de  Amicis,  when  he 
visited  San  Carlos.1  Yet  generally,  if  the  immigrant’s  foothold 
was  unsteady  in  the  first  trials,  it  presently  grew  firm.  Life  was 
primitive  assuredly,  but  wholesome;  most  of  all,  different  from 
life  in  Italy.  Of  San  Carlos,  de  Amicis  wrote: 

It  isn’t  a village  and  it  isn’t  a city.  We  have  nothing  like  it.  It  is  a 
sketch  or  plan  of  a great  city,  or  as  it  were  a page  of  notes,  with  words  and 
phrases  here  and  there,  separated  by  great  blanks:  a single  vast  rectangle, 
surrounded  with  little  red  and  white  one-storied  houses,  among  which  appear 
the  openings  of  great  streets  which  do  not  exist  — urban  houses,  metropolitan 
streets;  a princely  waste  of  space;  a primeval  simplicity  of  shapes  and 
colors,  light  in  torrents,  and  the  air  of  the  infinite  plain  — something,  I can- 
not say  what,  of  youth  and  adventure,  uttering  the  tones  of  liberty  and 
hope.2 

And  life  was  often  idyllic.  In  any  one  colony  it  was  the  people 
of  one  part  of  Italy  who  predominated.  Friendliness  there  was  and 
festivity.  They  spoke  a single  dialect  which  not  infrequently  even 
the  Germans  and  French  and  Swiss,  or  whoever  their  co-settlers 
were,  had  to  learn ! Their  ceremonies  and  songs  and  dances  were 
those  they  had  grown  up  with  in  Italy.  If  labor  was  hard,  its 
mead  was  generous.  Their  instalments  of  debt  were  paid  off  and 
they  bought  more  land,  while  their  first  holdings  rose  in  value. 
It  was  an  epoch  in  which,  as  fresh  settlers  came,  and  railways  were 
built,  men  touched  wealth  by  a process  of  increasing  returns,  and 
one  writer  proclaimed  that  “ the  desperate  theories  of  Mai  thus  ” 
did  not  apply.3 

1 In  America,  p.  116.  He  also  (pp.  105-110)  rehearses  other  complaints  of  the 
colonists,  particularly  against  the  government. 

2 Ibid.,  pp.  68  f.  Cf.  Scardin,  ii,  pp.  90  ff. 

3 Carrasco,  Descripcion  geogrdjica,  p.  239.  Accounts  of  social  life  in  the  colonies 


248 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


The  testimony  of  Lonfat,  Beck-Bernard,  Zeballos,  and  others 
regarding  the  well-being  of  the  colonists  in  the  earlier  period  is 
presently  reenforced  by  statements  of  various  representatives  of 
Italy.  When  in  1888  the  Italian  Geographic  Society  sent  a ques- 
tionnaire to  leading  Italians  of  the  more  considerable  colonies, 
the  replies  it  received  were  generally  comforting.  Not  always  is  it 
possible,  in  these  reports,  to  separate  sharply  the  agricultural 
from  other  careers,  but  since  agriculture  is  generally  named  as  the 
chief  occupation,  the  distinction  is  the  less  necessary.  Wages 
received  were  commonly  the  equivalent  of  four  to  seven  Italian 
lire  per  day.  From  Rosario  it  was  reported  that  most  Italians 
tended  to  become  proprietors;  from  S.  Nicolas  that  they  could 
save  half  their  wrages;  similarly  in  the  outlying  provinces.  Their 
savings  were  sent  to  Italy,  used  to  bring  over  friends  and  relatives, 
or  invested  in  land;  and  from  various  places  there  was  testimony 
that,  though  most  Italians  came  with  the  expectation  of  returning, 
they  usually  remained  in  Argentina.  Although  much  was  said  of 
the  risen  and  still  rising  prices  of  land,  the  difficulty  was  not 
counted  serious.  Credit  could  be  had,  because  harvests  were 
usually  good.1 

Four  or  five  years  later,  the  Italian  government  sent  to  its 
agents  a similar  questionnaire.  Though  the  intervening  time  had 
brought  panic  and  depression,  whose  effects  were  still  partly  felt, 
yet  any  reader  of  these  reports  must  regard  their  general  tone  as 
one  of  satisfaction.  In  Buenos  Aires  province,  earnings  from  agri- 
culture were  good,  few  settlers  were  unable  to  meet  their  obliga- 
tions, labor  brought  a fair  return,  only  for  special  reasons  were 
renters  of  land  unsuccessful;  but  outside  of  the  harvest  season, 
employment  might  be  difficult.  Agricultural  wages  rose  after 
the  panic,  but  the  currency  was  still  depreciated.  High  prices  for 
the  cereals  kept  the  share  cultivators  successful.  The  consul  at 

are  none  too  numerous.  See  Troisi,  passim;  de  Amicis,  passim;  Scardin,  ii, 
pp.  89-109,  m-129;  J.  Ceppi,  Cuadros  sud-americanos  (Buenos  Aires,  188S),  pp. 
83  fL;  G.  von  Stramberg,  Reiseskizzen  aus  dem  unleren  La  Plata-Gebiete  (.Antwerp, 
1887).  In  the  Italian  consular  reports  are  occasional  noteworthy  passages.  For  the 
later  period,  see  the  cited  reports  of  the  travelling  inspectors  Tomezzoli  and  Rossi. 

1 Reale  Societa  Geografica  Italiana,  Indagini  sidla  emigrazione  italiana  (Rome, 
1890),  especially  pp.  88-92,  143-149,  171  f.,  207-210,  234!.,  299,  323  f. 


ARGENTINA.  AN  ECONOMIC  RENAISSANCE 


249 


Rosario,  speaking  for  a district  comprehending  several  provinces, 
reported  general  content;  the  Italians  had  made  money,  and  were 
now  resolved  to  stay  permanently.  The  Santa  Fe  consul  deemed 
most  immigrants  prosperous,  the  agricultural  laborers  and  renters 
specifically.1 

After  1900,  the  indications  still  for  a time  continue  favorable. 
In  a thoughtful  and  sane  immigrants’  guide  of  the  period,  the 
author  writes,  “ If  you  ask  the  colonists  of  Santa  Fe  province, 
largely  Italians,  regarding  their  way  of  life,  they  will  reply  that 
they  are  doing  finely.”  Some  have  failed,  among  the  immigrants; 
but  many  beginning  humbly  have  risen  to  ownership;  and  the 
country  is  a good  one  for  Italians.2  In  1903  a consular  report 
holds  both  day  laborers  and  proprietors  of  Santa  Fe  to  be  pros- 
perous.3 The  1904  harvests  will  justify  a further  immigration.  In 
1905  a request  for  immigration  by  the  Italian  Chamber  of  Com- 
merce is  given  official  approval  in  Italy.4  And  again  in  1905  an 
elaborate  consular  report  on  Cordoba  describes  satisfactory  con- 
ditions of  labor  and  wages.5 

And  yet,  in  these  first  years  of  the  new  century,  forces  were 
coming  to  a head  which,  for  an  indefinite  and  perhaps  a long  time, 
were  to  diminish  the  attractiveness  of  the  country.  Nowhere  are 
the  new  conditions  more  pointedly  set  forth  — if  also,  I suspect, 
with  some  excess  of  pessimism  — than  in  the  elaborate  reports 
made  to  his  government  by  Tomezzoli,  a travelling  inspector,  who 
in  1905-07  spent  some  months  in  Argentina.  The  evil  of  evils 
which  he  found  was  the  bidding  up  of  land  values.  In  Cordoba 
and  Santa  Fe  the  valuable  lands,  held  in  large  blocks,  only  rarely 
came  upon  the  market,  so  that  newcomers  could  hardly  expect  to 
become  owners.  If  perchance  a piece  of  land  was  taken  to  be  paid 
for  in  instalments,  it  was  found  difficult  to  make  payments,  and 

1 Emig-  e Col.,  1893,  PP-  18,  29,  41,  45  f.,  57,  61. 

2 G.  Ceppi,  Gaida,  pp.  42,  52,  86. 

3 G.  Notari,  “ Gli  italiani  nel  dipartimento  di  Santa  Fe,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1903,  No. 
7,  pp.  3-15.  Cf.  Malaspina,  “ L’immigrazione  nella  Repubblica  Argentina,”  Boll. 
Emig.,  1902,  No.  3,  pp.  3-24. 

4 Note  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1905,  No.  18,  p.  61. 

5 Notari,  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1905,  No.  22,  esp.  pp.  33  f. 


250 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


presently  no  money  could  be  saved  for  further  purchases.  Since 
after  five  years  of  cultivation  the  land  needed  rest,  the  proprietors 
required  rather  large  estates,  and  from  the  beginning  the  units 
settled  had  been  too  small.  In  every  five  years  were  two  bad,  one 
ordinary,  and  two  good  years  - — it  was  hard  to  avoid  debt,  and 
often  the  tradespeople  came  to  own  the  farms.  Share  cultivators 
did  not  thrive,  and  renters,  paying  now  an  increased  share  of  the 
net  product,  and  bearing  a larger  part  of  the  risks,  often  came  to 
grief.  What  thousands  of  cultivators  were  less  well  off  than  they 
had  been  in  Italy ! The  peon  had  to  be  paid  a high  wage.  “ It  is 
curious  that  the  two  agricultural  classes  of  farmers  and  laborers, 
both  Italian,  should  have  interests  so  diverse  that  the  prosperity 
of  the  one  can  come  only  by  the  serious  economic  sacrifice  of  the 
other.”  By  heat  and  drought  the  yield  of  land  was  reduced. 
Exhaustion  of  the  soil  came  in  many  places  after  a few  years,  and 
migration  westward  or  south  had  to  follow.  In  Buenos  Aires 
province  the  nomad  Italians  must  pick  up  and  go  after  four  years, 
because  the  proprietors  wished  to  return  to  grazing.  Wherever 
the  Italians  went,  speculation  preceded  them  and  the  prices  of 
lands  became  forbidding.  “ It  is  useless  to  think  any  longer  of  the 
easy  acquisition  of  land  in  any  part  of  Argentina,  especially  by 
the  newcomer.”  And  although  there  were  places,  like  Caroya  and 
Ceres,  in  which  agriculture  throve,  a pronounced  decline  of 
agricultural  immigration  was  to  be  expected.1 

Tomezzoli  visited  Argentina  during  the  culmination  of  an  epoch 
of  prosperity.  Beyond  doubt  the  speculative  ardor  of  a pecul- 
iarly speculative  country  was  labelling  lands  with  undeserved 
values  and  placing  its  premium  upon  business  shrewdness  and 
unscrupulousness.  Some  brighter  pictures,  drawn  at  about  the 
same  time,  are  not  wanting.  In  the  Cordoban  department  of  San 
Justo,  despite  years  of  drought  and  locusts,  the  colonists  were 
reported  to  be  doing  well,  sometimes. excellently;  but  the  quick 
fortunes  of  1888  were  no  longer  possible.  In  the  Bell  Ville  dis- 
trict “ all  of  our  colonists  have  bettered  their  condition;  those 
here  only  a year  or  two  are  still  relatively  poor.”  In  the  depart- 
ment of  Marcos  Juarez,  the  farm  hand  could  still  save  1000  pesos 

1 I have  only  roughly  summarized  Tomezzoli’s  copious  chapters. 


ARGENTINA.  AN  ECONOMIC  RENAISSANCE  25 1 


in  a good  year,  and  through  renting  could  advance  to  ownership. 
In  general,  all  classes  of  cultivators  throve,  but  less  easily  and 
quickly  than  formerly.1 

But  even  these  statements  are  guarded.  The  tide  clearly  had 
begun  to  recede.  A French  student,  M.  Walle,  declared  that  the 
Golden  Age  of  the  cereal  provinces  had  passed;  the  high  land 
values  must  check  colonization.2  Still  later,  an  English  traveller, 
Mr.  Hammerton,  announced  that  “ the  roll  of  those  who  have 
turned  over  the  soil  of  the  Argentine  and  brought  it  into  bearing 
to  the  great  benefit  of  its  owners  and  their  own  non-success  is,  I 
am  told,  beyond  reckoning.”  3 In  1913,  Adolfo  Rossi,  veteran 
observer  of  emigration,  journeyed  through  Santa  Fe,  Corrientes, 
and  the  Chaco.  Some  of  the  colonies,  he  reported  to  his  govern- 
ment, were  impressively  well  off,  others  more  or  less  in  trouble. 
All  the  good  lands  of  Sante  Fe  and  Corrientes  had  been  taken  up. 
Nearly  everywhere  the  old  first  settlers  had  prospered  — had 
grown  rich  by  the  very  changes  that  had  made  life  difficult  for  the 
newcomers.  The  old  proprietors  and  their  sons  were  in  a paradise, 
the  renters  of  land  in  a purgatory,  and  the  lot  of  the  newest  immi- 
grants, struggling  against  debt  and  privation,  was  an  inferno.4 

And  here  we  may  leave  these  immigrants.  The  unmistakable 
decline  in  the  eligibility  of  their  condition  is  a decline  from  a 
shining  era,  to  which  there  can  be  no  return.  In  some  essentials 
the  development,  including  its  latest  phase,  has  a parallel  in  that 
of  certain  states  of  the  northern  continent  first  settled  by  farming 
immigrants  from  northwestern  Europe. 

1 Notari,  in  Emig.  e Col.,  pp.  25,  65  f.,  70-77,  86,  92,  96  f.,  121,  124. 

2 Walle,  pp.  96-100.  3 Hammerton,  pp.  292  f. 

4 Rossi’s  whole  narrative  deserves  to  be  read.  On  the  newer  conditions,  cf.  also 
G.  Bevione,  L’Argentina  (Turin,  1911),  pp.  37,  134,  211;  de  Zettiry,  p.  152;  A. 
Neggia,  “La  pampa,”  Italica  Gens,  December,  1912,  pp.  384-391;  A.  Mollo, 
“ Sciopero  dei  lavoratori  della  terra  nella  provincia  di  Santa  Fe,”  Italica  Gens, 
January-February,  1913,  pp.  21-38. 

It  is  apparently  not  the  case  that  any  men,  by  sheer  competence  in  cultivation, 
have  risen  to  great  wealth.  The  “ wheat  king  ” as  he  has  been  called,  the  Piedmon- 
tese Guazzone,  who  after  a humble  start  in  Argentina  developed  the  rich  Olavarria 
district  in  Buenos  Aires,  appears  to  have  attained  his  eminence  quite  as  much 
(perhaps  more)  by  business  shrewdness  and  an  understanding  of  speculative  values 
as  by  express  entrepreneur  or  technical  ability.  On  Guazzone,  see  De  Gubernatis, 
pp.  13  f.,  and  Zuccarini,  pp.  295  f.  (cf.  p.  297  for  a similar  instance). 


CHAPTER  XIV 


ARGENTINA.  II.  NON-AGRI CULTURAL  PURSUITS.  GENERAL 
ROLE  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS 

The  native  Argentine  of  the  older  stock,  Spanish  or  mixed,  had 
no  love  for  agriculture.  The  estancia  with  its  less  confined  life  in 
the  leagues  of  open  plain,  its  semi-feudal  social  system,  and  its 
chances  for  speculative  gain,  continued  throughout  the  agricultural 
period  to  exercise  a strong  fascination.  Besides,  a native  popula- 
tion is  seldom  willing  to  engage  in  the  same  occupations  as  those  of 
immigrants.  Its  activities  are  less  “ menial,”  tend  to  depend 
much  on  those  wider  adjustments  permitted  by  a knowledge  of 
the  vernacular,  of  the  physical  country,  of  economic  relationships, 
of  social  and  political  traditions.  It  manifests  an  eagerness  to 
seem  and  to  be  different  from  the  immigrant  population.  Its 
income  rises,  the  leisure  it  enjoys  becomes  more  general  and  more 
evident.  And  the  more  voluminous  the  foreign  influx,  the  more 
abrupt  and  emphatic  is  the  elevation  of  the  older  stock. 

In  Argentina  these  changes  happened  with  an  intensity  rarely 
to  be  witnessed.  Immigration  turned  to  agriculture  and  endowed 
passive  lands  with  fruitfulness  and  a price  — lands,  truly,  that 
had  often  been  deemed  sterile.  Nearly  all  the  lots  acquired  by  the 
land-avid  Italians  were  bought  from  private  owners  or  exploiting 
companies.  Still  broader  areas  were  cultivated  by  them  as  share 
tenants,  renters  or  laborers.  Along  with  all  foreigners  they,  it  has 
been  said,  have  been  desired,  not  that  a prosperous  farming  class 
might  come  to  be,  but  in  order  that  the  value  of  the  lands  of  the 
great  private  owners,  themselves  generally  unwilling  to  sell,  might 
be  enhanced.1  So  a leisure  class  has  been  promoted  and  propped 
up  — not  created,  for  its  birth  was  earlier  — and  sheltered  against 
encroachment. 

1 E.g.,  “ There  are  two  kinds  of  people,”  according  to  an  aphorism  cited  by  M. 
Huret  (p.  489),  “ the  foolish  and  the  wise:  in  Argentina,  the  wise  are  those  who 
hold  on  to  their  lands  and  buy  more;  the  foolish,  those  who  sell.” 

252 


ARGENTINA.  NON-AGRICULTURAL  PURSUITS  253 


Though  Rosario,  in  the  heart  of  the  older  cereal  country,  a 
kind  of  Argentine  Chicago,  is  a large  city,  the  actual  metropolis 
of  the  enriched  classes  is  Buenos  Aires.  That  city,  the  fourth  in 
size  on  the  American  continent  and,  after  Paris,  the  largest  Latin 
city  of  the  world,  holds  a fifth  of  the  Argentine  population.  Had 
New  York  the  same  fraction  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  United 
States  it  would  contain  twenty  million.  But  Buenos  Aires  is 
more  like  New  York  in  harboring  also  an  enormous  immigrant 
population.  Of  Italians  it  has  nearly  as  many  as  the  Eternal  City 
itself.  It  is  indeed  the  great  headquarters,  if  not  really  the  abode, 
of  most  of  those  Italians  in  the  Argentine  who  are  not  cultivators 
of  the  fields.  And  their  role  - — we  have  scarcely  so  far  noticed 
them  — is  hardly  less  impressive  than  that  of  the  farmers. 

If  we  except  those  first  adventurous  Italians  who  made  their 
way  into  Argentina  during  the  colonial  period,  then  the  earliest 
important  Italian  settlers  were  not  agriculturists  but  seamen. 
What  his  instrument  is  to  the  musician,  the  sea,  it  has  been  said,  is 
to  the  Genoese.  When  the  demand  for  sailing  ships  along  the 
Ligurian  coast  began  to  fall,  their  owners  brought  them,  unin- 
vited, to  the  promising  estuary  of  the  Plate  River.  This  was  still 
early  in  the  century,  long  before  the  hand  of  Rosas  had  lost  its 
clutch  upon  the  country.  They  established  their  routes  along  the 
shallow  waters  of  the  Argentine  coast,  skirted  both  sides  of  the 
Plate,  and  freely  moved  up  and  down  the  Parana  and  Uruguay 
rivers.  In  navigation  they  were  past  masters,  from  whom  the 
Argentines  had  everything  to  learn.  Just  to  the  south  of  Buenos 
Aires,  where  the  narrow  but  deep  Riachuelo  empties  into  the 
Plate,  these  Genoese  stationed  their  craft  and  — what  is  more  — - 
set  to  building  others.  When  the  Mulhalls  wrote,  in  the  seventh 
decade  of  the  century,  this  suburb,  called  the  Boca,  had  a popula- 
tion of  five  thousand.  What  Andree  had  written,1  years  earlier, 
they  found  still  to  be  true:  the  Genoese  had  a monopoly  of  the 
river  and  coast  navigation  of  Argentina.  Their  crews  at  that  time 
sharing  equally  in  the  profit,  they  appointed  a commander  and 
traded  on  their  own  account,  bringing  cheese,  birds,  skins,  fruit, 

1 Op.  til.,  pp.  313,  345. 


2S4 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


and  other  commodities  from  the  upper  markets  to  Buenos  Aires 
and  Montevideo.1  A score  of  years  later,  it  was  estimated  that 
the  population  of  the  Boca  reached  twenty  thousand,  nearly  all 
Italians.  It  constituted  one  of  the  most  animated  centers  of  the 
province,  into  which  on  every  holiday  the  Buenos  Aires  Italians 
of  the  poorer  classes  poured  forth  to  celebrate.2  Their  primacy  in 
water  transportation,  won  so  early,  has  never  been  lost.  At  the 
end  of  the  century,  a computation  held  that  “ two-thirds  of  the 
crews  of  the  sail  and  steamboats  are  composed  of  Italians  and 
Dalmatians,  and  the  rest,  with  rare  exceptions,  of  the  direct 
descendants  of  Italian  immigrant  seamen.”  3 

Out  of  this  teeming  population  towers  the  figure  of  Nicola 
Mihanovich  who,  arriving  as  a poor  sailor  at  the  age  of  eighteen, 
in  1867,  had  become  the  owner,  thirty  years  later,  of  125  ships, 
touching  in  their  courses  most  parts  of  the  South  American  coast. 
He  built  his  craft  out  of  timber  from  his  own  colony  in  the  Chaco. 
Though  himself  a Dalmatian,  he  had  chiefly  Italians  for  his  asso- 
ciates and  employees  in  the  greatest  shipping  company  of  South 
America.4 

It  is  scarcely  astonishing  that  emigrants  from  the  villages  and 
towns  of  Italy  — not  the  cities  — should  have  been  numerous 
among  the  immigrants  into  Argentina.  The  general  reasons  for 
their  emigration  we  need  not  repeat.  To  Argentina  they  went 
because  they  there  would  have  the  chance  of  serving  their  com- 
patriots and  because  increasingly,  in  a new  and  expanding  coun- 
try, they  could  expect  to  make  their  skill  tell  in  the  diversification 
of  its  industries  and  trade.  Nothing  in  the  traditions  of  this 

1 M.  G.  and  E.  T.  Mulhall,  Handbook  of  the  River  Plate  (2  vols.,  Buenos  Aires, 
1869),  i,  p.  116. 

2 See  the  pictures  of  J.  Ceppi,  pp.  21-24;  of  S.  Dominguez,  Recuerdos  de  Buenos 
Aires  (Valladolid,  1888),  pp.  25-33,  and,  for  a later  time,  of  C.  Lupati,  Argentini  e 
italiani  al  Plata  (Milan,  1910),  pp.  116-123. 

3 Einaudi,  Un  principe  mercante,  p.  37.  See  also  Reale  Societa  Geografica 
Italiana,  p.  90;  Camera  Italiana  di  Commercio  ed  Arti  (Buenos  Aires) , Gli  italiani 
nella  Repubblica  Argentina  (Buenos  Aires,  1898),  Parte  Generale,  pp.  2 f.;  and  an 
unsigned  article,  “ The  Immigrant  in  South  America,”  in  Blackwood's  Magazine, 
November,  1911,  p.  611. 

4 See  esp.  Cam.  Ital.  di  Comm.,  Esposizione  grafica,  pp.  472-480. 


ARGENTINA.  NON-AGRICULTURAL  PURSUITS  255 


country  gave  promise  that  its  ascent  to  a broader  civilization 
could  come  autochthonously.  Tremendous  then  must  be  the 
opportunity  for  aliens.  With  large  rewards  ahead  and  little 
competition,  a man  might  climb  from  humble  places  to  power. 
How  generally  such  chances  were  scented  by  the  emigrant  before 
he  left  Italy  no  one  can  say.  But  we  know  that  the  desired  success 
often  came  swiftly,  and  must  have  been  bruited  in  Italy.  “ The 
vendor  of  ices,”  an  Italian  consul,  for  example,  related  in  1893, 
“becomes,  say,  a liquor  dealer,  the  fruit  seller  a restaurant  or 
hotel  keeper,  the  tailor  a cloth  merchant,  the  bricklayer  a building 
contractor.”  1 

Even  in  the  first  quarter  or  third  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
such  immigrants  were  numerous  in  Argentina.  They  included 
physicians,  artists,  engineers,  pharmacists,  tradespeople,  inn- 
keepers, artisans.  A writer  in  the  Revista  del  Plata  said,  “ Genoa 
gives  us  a world  of  seamen,  together  with  tavern  keepers,  sellers  of 
foodstuffs,  ship  artisans  and  that  succession  of  shopkeepers  who  in 
the  Calle  Federation  clothe  and  equip  our  gauchos.  From  Savoy 
we  get  bricklayers,  from  Lombardy  painters,  glaziers,  figure- 
makers,  etc.”  Though  their  architects  in  this  period  were  un- 
schooled, they  began  to  build  numerous  small  structures  of  all 
kinds.  The  names  of  many  early  importers  were  Italian.2 

Only  in  the  year  1876  did  the  immigration  statistics  begin  to 
specify  occupations.  Of  the  845,000  Italians  who  came  in  the 
period  1876-97  (of  whom  two-thirds  were  agriculturists)  13,000 
were  masons,  23,000  artisans,  10,000  craftsmen,  9000  trades- 
people, 2700  gardeners,  and  94,000  day  laborers.  After  1880,  the 
development  of  the  country  assumed  such  a pace  that  the  supply 
of  labor  lagged  behind  the  demand.  Near  the  end  of  this  pros- 
perous decade,  the  inquiry  of  the  Italian  Geographic  Society, 
already  referred  to,  was  made.  The  answers  submitted  showed 
that  in  the  La  Plata  region,  those  next  in  importance  after 
farmers  were,  roughly  in  order,  bricklayers,  blacksmiths,  car- 

1 Emig.  e Col.,  1893,  P-  16. 

2 Parisi,  pp.  21  f.,  30,  36-39.  It  has  seemed  right  to  soften  somewhat  Parisi’s 
claim  as  to  the  extent  to  which  workers  of  the  kinds  mentioned,  and  others,  were 
represented. 


256  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

penters,  shoemakers,  tailors,  hat  makers,  furnace  workers,  cooks 
and  domestic  servants,  and  others;  at  Rosario,  then  already  a 
large  city,  most  of  the  artisan  and  manual  labor  class,  and  most 
tradespeople,  were  Italian;  in  San  Juan,  masons,  carpenters,  and 
blacksmiths  came  after  agriculturists  in  importance;  and  so 
through  a considerable  list.1  Thomas  A.  Turner,  who  lived  for 
five  years  in  Argentina  and  deemed  the  country  “ swamped  by 
Italians,”  wrote,  with  some  exaggeration,  “ All  the  petty  trade  of 
the  country  is  in  his  hands.  The  fondas,  almacenes,  confiterias, 
and  many  other  businesses  are  almost  exclusively  carried  on  by 
these  lean  and  ill-favored  sons  of  Italy.”  2 

The  same  wide  distribution  and  frequent  dominance  of  the  Ital- 
ians is  again  abundantly  shown  in  the  later  consular  reports  made 
to  the  (Italian)  Emigration  Service.  In  1902,  Italian  masons, 
carpenters,  shoemakers,  painters,  tailors,  street  pavers,  and  un- 
skilled laborers  were  declared  to  be  “ absolutely  preponderant  ” 
in  Buenos  Aires.3  In  the  Santa  Fe  district  Italians  were  reported 
in  1903  to  abound  as  unskilled  laborers,  tailors,  masons,  shoe- 
makers, blacksmiths,  bakers,  mechanics,  waiters,  retail  trades- 
people (especially  in  food),  and  tanners — -hide  tanning  was 
claimed  to  be  wholly  an  Italian  industry.4  In  Cordoba  City  and 
Rio  Cuarto  they  were  blacksmiths,  carpenters,  tailors,  barbers, 
coppersmiths,  hotel  keepers.5  In  the  provinces  of  Tucuman  and 
Salta  were  similar  groups;  there  was  only  a little  agriculture  here, 
but  much  trade  and  industry.6  Their  tradespeople  and  artisans 
were  described  as  the  progressive  element  in  Jujuy.  And  in 
Corrientes,  Italian  commercial  houses  were  among  the  largest. 

1 Reale  Soc.  Geog.  Ital.,  pp.  88-92. 

2 Turner,  Argentina  and  the  Argentines  (London,  1892),  pp.  123  f.;  cf.  p.  105. 
The  collection  of  Italian  consular  reports  published  at  this  time  is  of  the  same  tenor 
as  the  reports  of  the  Geographic  Society:  Emig.  e Col.,  1893,  e.g.,  pp.  29,  51, 
42,  60. 

3 L.  Gioia,  “ Le  condizioni  degli  italiani  in  Buenos  Aires,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1902, 
No.  8,  p.  58. 

4 G.  Notari,  “ Gli  italiani  nel  dipartimento  di  Santa  Fe,  Boll.  Emig.,  1903, 
No.  7,  p.  12. 

6 Idem,  “ La  provincia  di  C6rdoba,”  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1905,  No.  22,  pp.  13,  iS. 

6 Idem,  “ Le  provincie  argentine  di  Tucuman,  Salta  e Jujuy  in  relazione  all' 
immigrazione  italiana,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1906,  No.  10,  pp.  8 f.,  28  f. 


ARGENTINA.  NON-AGRICULTURAL  PURSUITS  257 


They  establish  nearly  everywhere  the  businesses  which  engaged  them 
at  home  — here  a macaroni  factory,  there  a distillery,  here  a steam  sawmill, 
there  a lime  furnace.  All  industries  and  trades  are  successfully  carried  on 
by  our  compatriots,  from  bootblack  to  money  broker,  from  blacksmith  to 
jeweler,  from  gardener  to  colonizer  on  a large  scale,  from  stone  worker  to 
house  builder,  from  interior  decorator  to  teacher  of  painting,  from  mechanic 
to  mill  owner. 

This  was  written  of  Cordoba,  the  province.  Again, 

Phenomenal  is  their  fever  for  work:  all  wish  to  get  rich,  and  quickly. 
. . . The  railroad  employee  has  his  little  foodshop,  looking  after  it  as  he  may, 
helped  by  his  wife;  the  school  teacher  keeps  the  accounts  of  five  or  ten 
business  houses;  the  shoemaker  sells  lottery  tickets,  runs  an  exchange,  or 
a bootblacking  establishment;  the  type  setter  maintains  a tailoring  shop, 
administered  by  the  women  of  his  house;  the  alviacenero  sells  everything, 
from  wine  to  dry  goods,  from  pottery  and  hardware  to  sausages  and  liquors. 
This  combination  of  arts  and  trades  in  the  selfsame  person  assumes  in  the 
rural  districts  hardly  credible  forms.  There  our  immigrant  may  be  at  once 
blacksmith  and  shoemaker,  cook  and  tailor,  porter  and  bricklayer  — will- 
ing, gracious,  happy,  healthy,  always  content  with  his  lot,  always  trusting 
in  a better  future.1 

In  Cordoba  City  nearly  all  the  hotels  and  restaurants  have  been 
reported  to  be  in  Italian  hands,  also  the  principal  shops,  some 
large  lime  furnaces,  and  the  chief  establishments  for  making  shoes, 
wagons,  carriages,  hats,  clothes,  preserves,  and  liquors,  and  for 
tanning  hides.2 

In  the  law  and  medicine,  as  university  professors,  actors,  musi- 
cians, journalists,  they  have  played  no  mean  part,  and  have  at- 
tained to  shining  places.3  An  overwhelming  majority  of  the 
horticulturists  of  Buenos  Aires  — few  cities  have  made  more  of 
the  trade  of  these  artists  — have  been  Italians.  All  these  groups 
we  must  reluctantly  pass  by,  only  because  more  important  ones 
remain. 

As  architects,  engineers,  and  builders,  they  have  accomplished 
a work  at  once  distinguished  and  comprehensive.  Their  domi- 
nance in  architecture  over  a long  period  has  been  unquestionable. 
A truly  extraordinary  series  of  public  buildings,  theaters,  schools, 

1 Notari,  “ La  provincia  di  Cordoba,”  in  Emig.  e Col.  («'/.),  pp.  24  f. 

2 Ibid.,  pp.  45  f. 

3 Cam.  ItaL  di  Comm.,  Parte  Generale,  pp.  243-316;  Zuccarini,  pp.  451-464. 
(These  by  way  of  example  only.) 


258 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


churches,  banks,  and  private  dwellings  have  been  designed  by 
such  men  as  Meano,  Tamburini,  Aloisi,  Pineroli,  and  Morra. 
Sometimes,  as  in  the  case  of  Tamburini,  they  first  came  to  do  their 
work  on  commission;  again,  as  in  the  case  of  Bernasconi,  they  rose 
from  humble  beginnings  in  Argentina. 

Where  there  was  an  Italian  architect,  there  also  appeared  an 
Italian  builder  (but  much  of  the  work  of  the  builders  was  inde- 
pendent of  that  of  the  architects).  “ The  greater  part  of  the  pub- 
lic structures  of  the  Capital  and  of  the  other  cities  of  the  Republic, 
almost  all  the  churches,  the  schools,  numerous  hospitals  were 
designed  and  erected  by  Italian  architects,  or  by  their  sons  trained 
in  Italy,”  wrote  A.  Franzoni  some  years  ago.1  Hence  the  aspect 
of  these  cities  today  strongly  suggests  Italian  inspiration.  The 
architectural  transformation  of  Buenos  Aires,  begun  by  Canale 
while  yet  hardly  a building  of  two  stories  existed,  was  mainly 
the  work  of  Italians.  Of  the  houses  in  Buenos  Aires  few  now 
standing  were  built  before  1850,  and  the  overwhelming  majority 
have  been  erected  since  1880.  Generally  in  this  period,  as  the 
municipal  statistics  of  building  permits  show,  the  builders,  to  a 
preponderant  extent,  were  Italians.  The  thousands  of  structures 
of  La  Plata,  the  specially  created  capital  of  Buenos  Aires  province, 
were  mainly  put  up  by  them ; and  these  include  many  beautiful 
public  edifices.  At  Rosario,  Italian  building  workmen  have  been 
four-fifths,  or  more,  of  all,  and  Italian  architects  have  designed 
many  public  buildings.  Both  groups  have  been  prominent  also 
in  Santa  Fe  City  and  at  Parana,  capital  of  Entre  Rios.  In  Cor- 
rientes,  totally  transformed  since  1880,  the  architects,  builders, 
and  workmen  were  mainly  Italian;  Italian  builders  in  the  like- 
named  province  were  estimated  some  years  ago  to  be  nine-tenths 
of  all.  In  Cordoba  City,  three-quarters  of  the  structures  standing 
at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century  were  their  work.  In  Santiago 
del  Estero,  Tucuman,  Salta,  Jujuy,  and  Mendoza  innumerable 
public  and  private  edifices  were  the  fruit  of  their  efforts,  and  a 
considerable  part  also  of  what  Catamarca  could  show.2 

1 Cam.  Ital.  di  Comm.,  p.  6. 

2 Ibid.,  especially  the  excellent  monograph  by  P.Moneta,  pp.  104-nS;  Scardin, 
i,  pp.  188  f. 


ARGENTINA.  NON-AGRICULTURAL  PURSUITS  259 


“ In  particular,  building  workmen  are  in  constant  demand, 
since  every  year  an  abundance  of  new  construction  is  undertaken 
in  the  city,”  Andree  wrote  concerning  Buenos  Aires,  half  a cen- 
tury ago.1  At  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century,  it  was  calculated 
that  an  emphatic  preponderance  of  the  masons,  blacksmiths, 
carpenters,  plasterers,  and  others  who  had  built  and  rebuilt  the 
metropolis  during  the  previous  forty  years  had  been  Italian.2  A 
recent  generalization  holds  that  “ the  great  mass  of  the  building 
laborers  in  the  republic  are  Italians  — unskilled  men  from  Apulia 
and  Calabria;  masons,  marble  workers,  and  the  like  from  the  Po 
valley.”  3 

Almost  equally  impressive  is  the  record  in  projects  of  engineer- 
ing. An  Italian,  Medici,  devised  and  constructed  the  sewage 
system  of  Buenos  Aires  and  the  water  supply  and  sewage  systems 
of  La  Plata.  Others  built  waterworks  in  San  Juan  and  the  reser- 
voir and  filtration  system  of  Tucuman.  In  addition,  the  port 
works  of  Bahia  Blanca,  whose  harbor  is  even  better  than  that  of 
the  federal  capital,  and  the  military  port  works  of  Buenos  Aires 
were  of  Italian  construction,  designed  by  an  engineer,  Luiggi. 
Some  years  ago,  in  the  capital,  there  were,  out  of  seventy-three 
authorized  constructors  of  private  sewers,  fifty-seven  Italian. 
Without  the  great  irrigation  works  of  Cipolletti  in  Mendoza  and 
San  Juan  the  vineyards  of  those  provinces  would  be  much  less 
extensive;  the  Mendoza  reservoir  for  drinking  water  is  of  Italian 
construction.  The  San  Roque  reservoir  of  Cordoba,  head  of  an 
extensive  irrigation  system,  is  a lake  1600  hectares  in  area,  main- 
tained by  a dam  100  feet  high.  In  its  construction  all  of  the 
stonecutters  and  most  of  the  masons  employed  were  Italian. 
Others  played  an  important  part  in  the  cutting  of  the  Trans- 
Andine  tunnel,  many  having  been  enrolled  therefor  in  Switzer- 

] Andree,  p.  322. 

2 Cam.  Ital.  di  Comm.,  op.  cit.,  p.  104;  the  author,  Moneta,  roughly  estimates 
the  Italians  to  have  been  85  per  cent  of  these.  Cf.  Jannone,  pp.  132-134.  At  about 
the  same  time,  G.  Ceppi  held  that  three-quarters  of  the  masons  in  Argentina  were 
Italians  (p.  50). 

3 E.  Gerardin,  “ Les  ouvriers  du  batiment  au  Chili  et  en  Argentine,”  Musee 
Sociale,  July,  1913,  p.  196.  Cf.  also  the  strictly  secondary  account  of  G.  Hiller, 
Einwatiderung  und  Kolonisation  in  Argentinien,  i (Berlin,  1912),  p.  107. 


26o 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


land.  On  the  railways  the  inferior  grades  of  work  have  been 
theirs;  yet  an  Italian  received  the  commission  for  the  Villa  Maria- 
Rufino  line.  In  1904  the  difficult  task  of  building  the  Jujuy- 
Bolivia  railroad  was  begun,  to  continue  for  several  years.  Notari 
wrote  of  it,  “ This  enterprise  is  Italian.  The  engineers  are  Italian, 
the  designers,  the  contractors  of  the  various  branches,  the  fore- 
men, everybody,  including  the  managing  heads.  They  are  helped 
by  more  than  a thousand  Italian  workmen,  who  do  the  more 
difficult  and  skilled  work,  while  the  mass  of  the  common  laborers 
is  recruited  from  the  natives  and  the  Bolivians.”  1 

It  is  a pity  that  the  recent  industrial  and  trade  census  of  Argen- 
tina does  not  specify  the  role  of  foreigners  by  nationalities.2  The 
general  statistics  which  it  offers  for  the  proprietorship  of  establish- 
ments by  foreigners  as  a class  reveal  a situation  that  is  probably 
unique  even  among  the  newer  nations,  though  it  certainly  existed 
in  Argentina  as  early  as  1895.  Then  (in  1895),  for  some  details  can 
be  given,  the  foreign  proprietors  of  food-making  establishments 
(3574)  were  seven  times  as  numerous  as  the  Argentine,  and  the 
foreign  employees  (18,726)  were  more  than  twice  the  Argentine. 
In  all  manufactures  of  clothing,  foreign  proprietors  (5066)  and 
workmen  (22,185)  were  respectively  eight  times  and  more  than 
twice  the  Argentine;  in  building  (2995  proprietors,  17.817  work- 
men) , they  were  respectively  three  and  one  and  a half  times  the 
native;  in  the  metal  trades  (2744  proprietors,  10,613  workmen), 
they  were  seven  and  two  and  a half  times.3 

In  these  last  years  of  the  century  it  was  claimed  that  nine  out  of 
thirty  Italian  iron  foundries  had  more  than  three-fifths  the  total 

1 Notari,  “ La  provincia  di  C6rdoba,”  in  Emig.  c Col.,  p.  22.  See  also,  on  the 
Italians  in  engineering,  Cam.  Ital.  di  Comm.,  Parte  Generale,  pp.  118-144;  a sub- 
sequent work  of  a like  title,  dated  1906,  pp.  187-211;  Scardin,  ii,  p.  280;  Zuccarini, 
pp.  76,  348,  350;  de  Gubernatis,  p.  123;  “ Relazione  sui  servizi  . . . aprile  1906- 
aprile  1907,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1907,  No.  11,  p.  81;  Tomezzoli,  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1907,  No. 
17,  p.  41;  Rossi,  pp.  21-23;  Notari,  “Le  provincie  argentine  di  Tucuman,”  etc.,  in 
Emig.  e Col.,  pp.  141,  156,  167  f.  For  their  emphasis  on  the  Italians  as  general 
laborers  on  streets,  railways,  etc.,  see  also  G.  Ceppi,  p.  50;  Albertini,  p.  157;  Zuc- 
carini, p.  155;  Hiller,  p.  107. 

2 Censo  industrial  y comercial  de  la  Republica  Argentina,  1908-14,  Buenos  Aires, 
1915-16. 

3 Segundo  censo,  iii,  pp.  xcii  and  270  ff. 


ARGENTINA.  NON-AGRICULTURAL  PURSUITS  26 1 


iron  output  of  Argentina.1  Five-sixths  of  the  makers  of  iron  bed- 
steads were  Italian;  nearly  all  the  manufacturers  of  large  clocks 
and  the  owner  of  the  only  bell  foundry.  In  brass  and  in  bronze 
works  they  dominated.  Of  the  leaders  in  the  metal  trades,  many 
rose  from  humble  beginnings,  for  example  Zamboni,  a former 
blacksmith  of  Domodossola.  In  the  tanneries  of  the  province  of 
Buenos  Aires,  Italians  have  stood  high.  It  is  asserted  that  the 
salt  meat  industry  was  established  by  an  Italian,  one  Rocca,  and 
that  his  compatriots  improved  the  processes  of  salting;  but,  in 
the  freezing  of  meats,  they  have  counted  only  as  wage  earners. 
Many  have  been  soapmakers.  The  story  is  told  of  one  Piazza, 
an  immigrant  of  1870,  who  began  to  make  candles  in  his  own 
home,  expanded  his  establishment,  gradually  added  a soap  de- 
partment, a slaughterhouse,  a tannery  and  a shoe  factory,  ex- 
tracted oils,  and  dried  hides  for  export.  In  1898  Italians  were  held 
to  own  over  600  flour  mills,  and  to  preponderate  in  milling,  not 
only  in  the  capital  but  also  in  the  provinces.  Of  course  they  con- 
trolled the  macaroni  manufacture ! Their  distilleries  had  an  out- 
put of  more  than  half  the  alcohol  produced  in  Buenos  Aires. 
Except  in  the  brewing  of  beer,  where  the  Germans  led,  they  pre- 
dominated in  making  alcoholic  beverages.  In  fruit  canning,  in 
the  manufacture  of  matches,  tobacco,  paper,  and  jewelry  they 
held  a respectable  or  a dominant  place.  They  had  great  textile 
plants,  some  sugar  refineries.  All  over  the  country  there  have 
been  Italian  sawmills,  with  an  output  of  fine  woods  and  railway 
ties.  In  wood  carving,  for  which  the  Argentine  churches  have 
created  a great  demand,  they  have  stood  first;  and  they  make 
wagons,  baskets,  furniture.  As  wage  earners  in  all  these  indus- 
tries, they  have  naturally  been  numerous.  And  many  are  the 
wage  earners  who  have  set  up  small  establishments  of  their  own ; 
wherein,  I take  it,  lies  the  significance  of  those  surprising  census 
figures  which  show  the  Italians  to  have  even  a greater  excess  over 
the  Argentines  as  proprietors  than  as  employees.  “ In  the  ex- 

1 See  the  monograph  on  the  Italians  in  industry  by  G.  Grippa  in  Cam.  Ital.  di 
Comm.,  Parte  Generale,  pp.  151-169  (from  which  I have  drawn  freely),  and  pp.  321, 
327.  The  entire  590  pages  of  the  Espozione  Grafica  are  the  detailed  histories  ot  con- 
spicuous Italians. 


262 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


ploitation  of  small  industries,”  wrote  Ceppi  many  years  ago,  “ the 
Italian  has  hardly  a rival.”  1 

From  early  days,  traders  have  been  numerous.  The  class  has 
not  yet  disappeared  of  the  naranjeros,  Calabrian  and  Basilican, 
who  used  to  sell  fruit  in  the  streets,  nor  that  of  the  itinerant  mer- 
chants, Neapolitan  and  Calabrian,  who  used  to  wander  all  over 
the  country  selling  their  wares.2  But  it  is  a far  cry  from  the  sim- 
plicity of  these  types,  once  deemed  characteristic,  to  the  subse- 
quent many-sided  development. 

Consider  once  more  the  amazing  results  of  the  census  of  1895. 
There  were  then  32,000  foreign  heads  of  trading  establishments 
and  11,000  Argentine;  97,000  foreign  employees,  72,000  Argen- 
tine. The  decade’s  increase  had  been  very  great,  especially  in  the 
provinces  of  Santa  Fe  and  Buenos  Aires.  Four-fifths  of  the  trade 
in  Argentina,  reckoned  either  in  number  of  establishments  or  of 
employees,  has  been  in  the  provision  of  clothing,  food,  and  lodging. 
The  census  ranks  the  Italians  first  among  the  foreigners  in  trade 
and  grants  them  especial  predominance  in  the  sale  of  food.3 

Quite  as  striking  are  the  results  of  the  municipal  centenary  cen- 
sus of  Buenos  Aires  taken  in  1909:  the  Italians  owned  1890 
food  and  drink  shops  (large  and  small),  the  Argentines  only  731. 
Here  are  the  details : 4 


Italian  proprietors 

Argentine  proprietors 

Coal  depots 

763 

243 

Green  groceries 

86 

Wine  and  liquor  stores  . . 

. 290 

l6 

Inns 

214 

Il6 

Dairies  

394 

74 

Barber  shops 

874 

74 

Shoe  polishing  shops  .... 

329 

l6 

Dry  goods  stores 

180 

174 

Vegetable  stores 

*96 

26 

Shoe  stores 

650 

186 

Ceppi,  Cuadros,  p.  197. 

See  also  Zuccarini,  pp.  175, 

177;  C.  Cerboni, 

Mannalc  per  V emigrazione  dall'  Italia  all’  Argentina  (Buenos  Aires,  1905),  d.  83. 

2 Jannone,  pp.  1 29-131. 

3 Segundo  censo,  iii,  pp.  cxlii-cxliv. 

4 Buenos  Aires,  General  Census  uf  the  Population,  Buildings,  Trades  and  Itidus- 
tries  (3  vols.,  Buenos  Aires,  1910),  i,  pp.  130-134. 


ARGENTINA.  NON-AGRICULTURAL  PURSUITS  263 

Though  the  Italian  share  in  the  trade  of  the  more  advanced 
provinces  has  not  been  measured,  yet  it  is  clear  that  in  various 
sections  no  other  element  of  the  population  has  greater  importance. 
In  Cordoba,  in  a recent  time,  about  half  the  commercial  houses, 
and  in  Tucuman  and  Mendoza  an  indefinite  but  large  number, 
were  found  to  be  Italian.1  Indisputably  many  of  these  shops  were 
small;  modest  beginnings,  destined  often  to  prove  abortive.  Yet 
great  establishments  have  been  far  from  wanting,  like  the  alma- 
cenes  of  the  metropolis.  Here  and  there  a trader  has  risen  to 
power.  It  was  in  praise  of  a textile  merchant,  Enrico  dell’  Acqua, 
that  Einaudi  wrote  his  enthusiastic  Principe  Merc  ante,  the  tale 
of  a merchant  prince  who  by  shrewdness,  foresight  and  patience 
built  up  a vast  trade  in  Argentina  and  in  all  South  America,  and 
brought  the  New  World  commercially  into  closer  relations  with 
the  Old.2 

What  large  fortunes  the  Italians  have  gained  have  been  in  trade 
and  industry,  not  in  agriculture.  The  owner,  it  is  claimed,  of  the 
largest  estancias  in  Argentina  is  an  Italian  who  is  also  the  presi- 
dent of  a bank.  Many  have  accumulated  fortunes  of  a more 
moderate  size.3  And  whoever  follows  the  statistics  for  real- 
estate  dealings  in  the  cities  must  conclude  that  their  gains  have 
commonly  been  invested  in  that  obvious,  elementary,  and  tangible 
kind  of  property  to  which  the  rising  rich  everywhere  turn.  The 
last  census  of  Buenos  Aires  showed  more  Italian  male  owners  of 
real  estate  than  Argentine;  and  if  Argentine  women  had  not 
largely  exceeded  Italian  women  in  ownership  — a telling  evi- 
dence of  the  native  leisure-class  status  — then  the  Italians  as  a 
class  would  actually  have  included  more  proprietors  than  the 
Argentines.4 

] Rio  and  Achaval,  p.  378;  P.  Brenna,  “ L’emigrazione  italiana  nelle  provincie 
di  Cuyo,”  Boll.  Eviig.,  1914,  No.  6,  pp.  22-24. 

2 On  dell’  Acqua,  see  also  Cam.  Ital.  di  Comm.,  Esposizione  Grafica,  pp.  1-32. 

3 On  individual  business  successes,  see,  besides  the  references  on  manufacturing 
and  trade  already  given,  Scardin,  i,  pp.  255-317,  ii,  pp.  359-588;  Zuccarini,  pp. 
312-314;  Parisi,  pp.  534-544. 

4 Buenos  Aires,  General  Census,  igog,  i,  p.  103.  The  annual  report  on  real- 
estate  transfers  in  Buenos  Aires  appears  in  the  Anuario  Estadistico  of  that  city. 
A convenient  summary  of  data  for  other  parts  of  Argentina  is  in  Zuccarini,  pp.  164  f. 


264  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

Without  the  immigration  of  the  past  half  century  the  gigantic 
strides  of  Argentina  would  not  have  been  taken.1  Without  the 
coming  of  the  Italians,  the  forward  movement  must  have  been 
slow.  Yet  even  their  role  cannot  be  appreciated  without  a word 
of  context  and  setting.  Who  were  their  rivals  and  associates  ? 

Foremost  in  some  respects  were  the  English.  Few  in  number, 
they  have  been  occupied  in  mercantile  and  banking  pursuits, 
never  as  mechanics  or  in  the  humbler  departments  of  industry. 
Sometimes  they  have  come  to  superintend  engineering  projects, 
particularly  the  construction  of  railways,  and  often,  since  the 
native  landlords  have  turned  absentee,  they  have  become  the 
major-domos  of  the  great  estancias.  Most  of  all,  however,  they 
have  counted  as  investors  of  capital.  Owning  the  greater  part  of 
the  railways,  they  have  been  indispensable  to  the  Italian  agri- 
cultural development. 

Early  comers  were  the  Basques,  both  French  and  Spanish.  To 
no  other  country  have  they  gone  as  to  Argentina.  Hardy,  industri- 
ous, versatile,  they  have  done  much  in  agriculture  near  the  cities, 
and  especially  in  dairying.  Many  have  entered  brickmaking,  the 
saltmeat  establishments  and  miscellaneous  trades;  many  have 
been  common  laborers.  A few  have  risen  to  great  wealth.- 

The  French  have  in  recent  years  settled  in  the  cities,  bringing 
forms  of  skill  they  had  developed  at  home.  Next  to  the  English, 
they  have  invested  the  largest  sums  in  the  railways. 

Much  more  numerous  than  the  French,  following  next  after  the 
Italians  and  in  very  recent  years  actually  exceeding  them  in  point 
of  new  arrivals,  have  been  the  Spanish.  They  have  gone  little 
into  agriculture  but  much  into  trade.  Throughout  the  country 
they  own  many  almacenes.  In  Buenos  Aires  they  have  innumer- 
able food  provision  shops,  and  as  proprietors  of  dry  goods  estab- 
lishments have  an  extraordinary  preponderance,  far  exceeding  the 
combined  Argentine  and  Italian  representation.  Many  are  in 
tobacco  factories.  Fluency  in  the  use  of  the  language  has  been  of 
immense  use  to  them  and  has  given  them  a place  in  the  pro- 

1 It  is  interesting  to  read  contemporary  official  opinion  of  this  general  tenor. 
E.g.,  Buenos  Aires,  Census  of  1887,  i,  p.  533.  Cf.  Carrasco,  p.  275. 

2 An  admirable  volume  is  P.  Llande,  U emigration  basque,  Paris,  1910. 


ARGENTINA.  GENERAL  ROLE  AND  INFLUENCE  265 

fessions,  in  journalism,  and  in  officialdom  that  no  other  immi- 
grant group  enjoys.  For  their  numbers,  they  have  not  been 
enterprising. 

Fewer  Germans  have  come,  and  these  to  care  for  the  outposts 
of  commercial  houses  or  sometimes  to  manage  estancias.  Once 
they  entered  the  agricultural  colonies,  but,  like  the  Swiss,  Poles, 
Russians,  and  others,  they  were  too  few  to  count  for  much. 

What  of  the  native  Argentine  — not  just  the  hijo  del  pais  (any- 
body born  in  Argentina  except  an  Indian) , but  the  descendant  of 
the  Spanish  and  mixed  stock  ? While  England  has  supplied  capi- 
tal and  Italy  brawn,  these  people  have  reaped  the  rewards  of  lords 
of  the  soil.  Both  rich  and  poor  have  been  indolent,  scorning  labor. 
Politics,  sport,  and  the  speculative  mechanism  of  business  have 
been  their  major  interests;  especially,  the  life  of  luxury.  The 
mot  used  to  be  common  — perhaps  the  automobile  will  antiquate 
it  — that  Argentina  is  the  paradise  of  women,  the  purgatory  of 
men,  and  the  inferno  of  horses,  — it  never  had  reference  to  immi- 
grants’ families ! 

The  special  nature  of  the  contribution  which  the  Italians  have 
made  to  the  life  of  Argentina  is  partly  to  be  explained  in  terms  of 
their  own  characteristics.  These  have  been  often  observed  and 
commented  upon,  and  in  the  recorded  opinions  there  is  a large 
measure  of  agreement. 

To  speak  first  of  their  deficiencies:  in  agriculture  they  have 
often  paid  the  penalty  of  ignorance  and  of  the  inertia  of  tradition. 
Nearly  thirty  years  ago,  Peyret  drew  a picture  of  the  some- 
what isolated  community  in  Reconquista  which  might  appro- 
priately have  described  a village  in  Friuli  — a picture  of  general 
unproductiveness,  of  letting  superstition  stand  in  the  way  of 
rational  cultivation.1  It  is  especially  the  share  cultivators  and  the 
renters  who  have  been  backward  and  apathetic;  the  colonists 
have  usually  overcome  their  opposition  to  machines.  An  agrono- 
mist, Campolieti,  writing  before  the  pinch  came  in  Argentine 
farming,  charged  his  compatriots  with  stupidly  deeming  the 

1 Peyret,  p.  288.  Of  their  inert  opposition  to  machinery,  Scardiu  also,  a de- 
fender generally,  has  spoken  (ii,  p.  104;  ct.  p.  106). 


266 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


land  to  be  inexhaustible  in  fertility  and  so  neglecting  to  fertilize  — 
a fault  they  had  had  in  Italy.  Where  success  was  denied  them, 
the  reason  could  generally  be  found  in  their  defective  adaptation 
to  new  conditions,  especially  in  bad  planning  and  organization.1 
Failure  to  select  good  seeds,  to  reckon  with  the  conditions  of  soil 
and  climate,  to  try  new  crops,  to  utilize  chances  of  profit  through 
secondary  industries,  are  usual  faults  noted  by  Rfo  and  Achaval.2 
Tomezzoli,  on  his  disappointing  journey,  had  frequently  to  dwell 
upon  the  clumsiness  of  their  methods.3 

What  is  creditable  to  the  Italians  is  that  they  have  been  able 
to  overcome  by  other  traits  many  of  the  consequences  of  igno- 
rance. “ They  are  workers  of  incomparable  resistence,  robust, 
sober,  and  persevering.”  And  the  authors  of  these  words  further 
speak  of  their  even  temper  in  accepting  the  fatiguing  tasks  of  the 
farm,  their  plain  living,  their  close  application  to  their  work,  leav- 
ing it  only  for  necessary  interruptions,  or  for  the  dance  and  song 
of  a festival.  They  are  respectful  to  authority,  quiet,  keeping 
traditional  ways,  always  feverishly  anxious  to  get  rich.4  Huret 
speaks  of  their  “ admirable  endurance,”  their  readiness  to  shoul- 
der hardships,  to  sleep  on  the  ground,  for  example,  while  they 
hastily  build  a rude  hut  to  five  in,  to  content  themselves  with 
macaroni  and  corn  meal  in  order  to  ensure  their  future.5  Still 
other  writers  have  dwelt  upon  their  frequent  versatility ; their 
capacity  (in  one  or  another  individual)  to  get  along  in  almost  any 
occupation  (except  grazing,  apparently)  and  to  fit  their  ambitions 
to  their  circumstances;  their  patience,  further,  resignation  to 
the  inevitable,  and  clean  morals.6 

It  is  most  of  all  the  Piedmontese,  after  them  the  Lombards,  and 
finally  perhaps  the  Venetians,  who  have  settled  in  the  agricultural 

1 Campolieti,  pp.  90,  228,  260.  He  has  much  to  say  on  the  consequences  of  the 
Italians’  ignorance. 

2 Op.  tit.,  p.  180. 

3 E.g.,  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1907,  No.  16,  pp.  25,  44. 

4 Rfo  and  Ach&val,  pp.  179  f. 

6 Op.  cit.,  p.  467. 

6 Molina  Nadal,  p.  225;  J.  Ceppi,  pp.  176,  196;  Bevione,  p.  83;  J.  A.  Wilde, 
Buenos  Aires  desde  setenta  afios  atras  (Buenos  Aires,  1SS1),  p.  115;  and  the  enthu- 
siastic opinion  of  J.  M.  Ramos  Mejia,  Las  multitudes  argentinas  (Madrid  and  Buenos 
Aires,  1912),  pp.  264  f. 


ARGENTINA.  GENERAL  RdLE  AND  INFLUENCE  2 6j 

colonies.  They,  primarily,  have  been  the  subjects  of  the  praises 
I have  recorded.  Though  the  Piedmontese  have  also  gone  into 
the  cities,  the  characteristic  and  chief  urban  immigrants  were  for 
a long  time  the  Genoese.  To  Argentina,  the  son  of  the  Riviera 
has  been  of  inestimable  value  — - “ the  serious  and  veracious  man, 
enterprising,  ambitious,  the  great  merchant,”  as  the  skilful 
Salaverria  pithily  described  him.1  In  the  twentieth  century,  the 
South  Italians  have  flocked  to  the  cities,  increasing  the  foreign 
colonies  there  — especially  that  at  Buenos  Aires  — to  impressive 
proportions.  Without  much  rising  from  the  humble  places,  they 
have  been  excavators,  street  pavers,  teamsters,  porters,  barbers, 
shoemakers,  and  petty  shopkeepers.  Their  concentration  in  the 
vast  seaport  city  is  less  a reflection  of  their  poverty  upon  arrival 
than  of  their  somewhat  unenterprising  or  ignorant  dependence 
upon  a great  employment  market  which  has  lavished  its  oppor- 
tunities upon  hard-working  men  of  little  skill,  willing  to  live 
meagerly  to  save. 

The  accomplishment  of  the  Italians  in  Argentina  is  to  be  ex- 
plained by  much  more  than  their  mere  numbers,  great  as  these 
are.  For  they  have  been  quick  and  eager  workers.  They  have 
labored  as  many  hours  and  days  as  possible,  not,  if  they  could 
help  it,  losing  time  between  jobs.  Actually,  therefore,  a hundred 
Italians  might  be  as  productive  as  two  hundred  Argentines. 
Furthermore,  at  least  in  agriculture  and  wherever  else  the  op- 
portunity has  been  offered,  their  women  and  children  have  much 
oftener  engaged  in  remunerative  toil  than  have  those  of  the  Ar- 
gentines and  some  other  groups. 

Undoubtedly  this  industriousness  of  the  Italians  and,  along 
with  it,  a keyed-up  thrift  have  been  new  notes  in  Argentina. 
“ The  Spanish  workman  does  not  accomplish  miracles  as  the  Ital- 
ian does,  he  cannot  equal  his  habits  of  economy,”  one  Spanish 
witness  has  written; 2 and  another,  that  the  Italian  “ is  the  con- 
trary type  of  the  creole,  the  opposite  pole.  . . . The  gaucho  does 

1 J.  M.  Salaverria,  Tierra  argentina  — psicologia,  tipos , costumbres,  valores 
(Madrid,  1910),  p.  163.  Salaverria ’s  entire  characterization  is  at  once  appropriate 
and  eloquent;  see  pp.  160-165. 

2 Dominguez,  p.  97. 


268 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


not  economize  nor  reckon  with  the  morrow,  while  the  gringo  piles 
up  his  money  one  coin  after  another.  Hence  the  disdain  which 
the  creole  feels  for  him.”  1 The  Italians  “ will  teach  us  that 
economy  and  persistent  labor  are  the  sure  talisman  of  fortune.”  2 

We  have  seen  that  the  firm  establishment  of  agriculture  in 
Argentina,  mainly  by  the  Italians,  was  a feat  that  marked  off  a 
new  era.  The  historian  may  yet  hold  it  even  more  to  the  honor 
of  these  immigrants  that  they  brought  new  sorts  of  moral  strength 
into  the  fiber  of  the  Argentine  nation. 

Once  more  it  behooves  us  to  regard  the  Italians  from  their  own 
point  of  view.  Into  the  vicissitudes  of  their  condition  in  agri- 
culture we  need  not  further  inquire.  But  how  have  those  fared 
who  have  sought  to  make  a living  by  other  courses  ? 

The  diligent  have  had  their  reward.  Artisans  and  technical 
workers  have  done  especially  well.  In  trade  and  industry  men 
have  risen  high  — the  tale  needs  here  no  repetition.  But  the  path 
to  success,  though  open,  has  for  many  been  steep.  The  quick 
changes  of  fortune  that  mark  so  rapidly  expanding  a country  as 
Argentina  have  often  afflicted  with  disastrous  unemployment  the 
humbler  workers.  In  few  countries  do  crop  failures  require  such 
general  retrenchment  in  expenditure  as  in  Argentina.  They  may 
mean  that  fewer  golondrinas  can  come  to  harvest  the  grain  and 
that  many  industrial  workers  will  be  stranded  or  will  deem  it  best 
to  return  home.  Particularly  in  Buenos  Aires,  there  has  been  a 
constant  and  considerable  nucleus  of  the  abjectly  miserable,  plain 
enough  evidence  that  a foothold  has  to  be  won  and  is  not  a gift  to 
the  immigrant. 

Winning  a foothold  has  demanded  abnegation,  the  most  careful 
paring  down  of  the  budget  of  living.  A little  less  economy,  and 
failure  has  threatened;  a little  more,  and  comfort  has  beckoned. 
How  many  immigrants  have  shortened  their  years  by  extreme 
privation!  As  long  as  he  has  dared,  the  tiller  of  the  fields  has 
lived  in  his  mud  hut,  which  is  sometimes  even  unthatched,  and  the 
urban  immigrant  in  the  conventillo.  Buenos  Aires  has  been  a city 
of  large  houses,  which  in  many  cases  have  sheltered  numerous 

1 Salaverria,  p.  162.  2 Dominguez,  p.  96. 


ARGENTINA.  GENERAL  ROLE  AND  INFLUENCE  269 

families.  Here  the  conditions  have  had  much  in  common  with 
those  in  the  tenement  houses  of  New  York.  In  recent  years  a 
centrifugal  growth  of  the  city  has  taken  place  and  now  many  of 
the  houses  are  miles  away  from  the  workshops.1  Overcrowding 
and  wretched  sanitary  conditions  have  obtained  in  these  dwellings, 
whether  of  the  old  sort  or  the  new.  In  Rosario,  in  Santa  Fe,  and 
in  Cordoba  City,  quite  as  in  the  metropolis,  the  Italians  have 
inhabited  the  poorest  quarters.2  Single  men  have  boarded  with 
families,  or  have  lived  in  groups  with  one  of  their  number  as  cook. 
The  concomitants  of  poverty  have  exhibited  themselves  in  sundry 
unwholesome  forms.  More  Italians  than  Argentines  are  arrested 
for  drunkenness  in  Buenos  Aires.  There  are  plenty  of  degraded 
forms  of  amusement,  and  sexual  irregularity  has  been  common. 
The  urban  social  conditions,  partly  due  to  the  disproportionate 
presence  of  men,  contrast  notably  with  the  rural. 

As  it  became  more  difficult,  some  years  ago,  to  earn  a living  on 
the  land,  so  it  likewise  became  more  difficult  to  do  so  in  the  non- 
agricultural  pursuits.  Employment  could  be  had,  but  the  rapid 
rise  in  prices  made  accumulation  of  savings  difficult.  The  situa- 
tion, however,  was  less  bad  than  in  agriculture,  and  after  immi- 
grants ceased  to  enter  the  colonies  they  still  continued  to  come  to 
the  cities.  In  the  five  years  beginning  in  1912  the  greatest  diffi- 
culty in  earning  a living  appears  to  have  been  reached.3 

Ignorant  of  the  language,  the  new  immigrant  has  had  to  con- 
tend against  fraud  and  exploitation  — not  that  the  older  immi- 
grant has  been  exempt.  Corruption  and  disorganization  in  the 

1 Cf.  Bryce,  p.  320:  “ On  the  land  side,  the  city  dies  out  into  a waste  of  scat- 
tered shanties,  or  “ shacks  ” (as  they  are  called  in  the  United  States),  dirty  and 
squalid,  with  corrugated  iron  roofs,  their  wooden  boards  gaping  like  rents  in  tattered 
clothes.  These  are  inhabited  by  the  newest  and  poorest  of  the  immigrants  from 
southern  Italy  and  southern  Spain.” 

- In  Rosario,  some  years  ago,  there  were  2600  conventillos  of  from  three  to  forty 
rooms  each;  of  these  1100  had  baths  and  only  600  had  sewer  connections.  J.  A. 
Alsina,  El  obrero  en  la  Republica  Argentina  (2  vols,  Buenos  Aires,  1905),  i,  p.  232; 
see  the  entire  section,  pp.  221-255. 

3 See  note  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1913,  No.  5,  pp.  121  f.;  Societa  di  Patronato  e Rim- 
patrio  per  gli  Immigranti  Italiani  in  Buenos  Aires,  “ Relazione  ” (1912-13),  Boll. 
Emig.,  1913,  No.  12,  pp.  32-46;  Gerardin,  p.  198.  It  was  still  a favorable  situa- 
tion of  wages  and  prices  that  Alsina  elaborately  recorded  after  the  opening  of  the 
present  century:  El  obrero,  etc.,  i,  pp.  221-255,  283-339,  ii,  pp.  1-418. 


270  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

Argentine  political  system  have  been  the  source  of  much  unjust 
discrimination.  How  many  are  the  Italians,  who  have  cried  out 
against  violence  gone  unpunished,  or  have  complained  of  venal 
sentences,  of  miscarried  justice,  of  despoliation  travestying  the 
name  of  law!  Legal  guarantees  appear  to  decline  as  the  great 
metropolis  fades  into  the  distance.1 

Notwithstanding  these  various  maladjustments  and  disap- 
pointments, the  life  of  the  Italians  in  Argentina  remains  a great 
fact  both  for  Italy  and  for  the  republic.  In  this  life  the  high  hopes 
of  both  countries  have  met,  but  partly  have  met  in  conflict.  While 
the  Italians  have  aimed  in  divers  ways  to  retain  their  character, 
the  Argentines  have  sought  to  absorb  them  into  the  nation. 

There  has  always  been  a difficulty  about  the  term  assimilation. 
What  it  implies,  the  loss  of  one  type  in  another,  is,  strictly  speak- 
ing, an  impossibility.  In  greater  or  less  degree  there  is  reciprocal 
change.  To  some  extent  even,  a mechanistic  principle  holds:  the 
more  numerous  the  immigrants,  the  greater  their  effect  upon  the 
national  stock;  and  it  is  only  in  countries  where  immigrants  are 
few  that  the  term  assimilation,  in  its  one-sided  emphasis,  has  a 
common  sense  justification. 

In  Argentina,  the  abounding  Italians  have  certainly  affected 
the  national  tastes  and  habits.  In  the  ways  already  pointed  out, 
they  have  quickened  the  pulse  of  the  country.  They  have  intro- 
duced ideals  of  industry  and  economy  which  are  not  likely  to 
disappear  — though  they  may  decline  — when  their  own  genera- 
tion has  passed  away.  They  have  established  occupations  which 
likewise  would  persist  were  no  more  Italians  to  come.  In  archi- 
tecture and  the  drama,  in  music  and  sculpture,  in  mural  decora- 
tion and  painting,  they  have  imposed  upon  the  country  their  own 
standards  of  beauty  which,  whatever  the  transformation  that  may 
take  place  in  a living  art,  will  never  be  wholly  obliterated.  These 
are  only  the  more  tangible  manifestations  of  changes  due  to  the 
Italians.  Of  the  extent  and  precise  forms  of  still  other  transforma- 

1 Tomezzoli  gives  numerous  instances.  Cf.  Bevione,  pp.  142-154;  “The  Immi- 
grant in  South  America,”  Blackioood’s,  pp.  612,  614;  R.  Murri,  “ Impressioni 
d’America,”  Nuova  Autologin,  January  1,  1913,  p.  84. 


ARGENTINA.  GENERAL  ROLE  AND  INFLUENCE  2JI 


tions  we  yet  know  little  enough.  How  many  instances  might  not 
a diligent  search  single  out ! 1 And  how  many  may  forever  elude 
discovery ! 

To  the  forces  of  assimilation  about  them,  the  Italians  have  op- 
posed a certain  resistance.  It  is  not  to  be  found  merely  in  the  use 
of  their  own  tongue,  the  retention  of  old  ceremonies  and  customs, 
but  in  many  patriotic  expressions.  Nearly  three-score  years  ago, 
when  the  news  came  to  Santa  Fe  that  Garibaldi  had  entered 
Naples,  the  Genoese  ships  in  port  decked  themselves  out  in  flags 
and  garlands,  cannon  thundered,  music  played,  and  the  people  of 
the  city,  unfurling  both  Italian  and  Argentine  banners,  came 
together  in  a common  enthusiasm.2  Three  years  after  the  death 
of  Mazzini,  a monument  to  him  was  erected  in  Buenos  Aires;  and 
later,  but  only  after  a contentious  discussion  in  the  Argentine 
Congress,  a monument  also  to  Garibaldi.  Of  the  latter  Rosario 
likewise  possesses  a memorial.  In  Buenos  Aires  and  in  Rosario 
there  are  Italian  hospitals.  On  the  occasion  of  such  national  dis- 
asters as  the  Po  flood  of  1879,  the  African  war  reverses,  the  Sicilian 
and  Calabrian  earthquakes,  sums  of  money  for  the  sufferers  were 
gathered;  and  subscriptions  to  the  recent  war  bonds  were  made. 
Italian  theatrical  companies  and  musicians  have  likewise  served 
to  keep  Italian  sentiment  alive.3  That  such  nationalistic  expres- 
sions are  broad  enough  or  frequent  enough  to  create  very  effective 
opposition  to  change  is  not  to  be  inferred;  and  although  a critic 4 
has  charged  that  the  Italian  remembers  his  country  only  when  it 
meets  misfortune,  or  on  the  Twentieth  of  September,  yet  these 
demonstrations  by  many  of  the  emigrants  from  Upper  Italy 
probably  draw  upon  some  deep  roots  and  are  not  merely  revivals 
externally  promoted. 

1 For  example,  the  Italians,  says  Viscount  Bryce,  learn  Spanish  “ while  also 
modifying  it  with  their  own  words  and  idioms.”  Op.  cit.,  p.  322.  Cf.  Turner,  p.  123. 
In  some  quarters  of  Buenos  Aires,  such  as  Barracas,  Boca,  Avellaneda,  the  Genoese 
dialect  is  almost  the  language  of  all.  Italian  is  the  ruling  speech  in  many  parts  of 
the  provincial  cities  and  in  many  colonies. 

2 The  story  is  prettily  told  by  a witness,  Mme.  Lina  Beck-Bernard,  in  Le  Rio 
Parana — cinq  annees  de  sejour  dans  la  Republique  Argentine  (Paris,  1864),  pp.  229- 
232. 

3 Cam.  Ital.  di  Comm.,  p.  37;  Scardin,  i,  pp.  45-65,  ii,  p.  83. 

4 Bevione,  p.  190. 


272  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

Italian  schools,  maintained  by  various  Italian  organizations, 
and  subsidized  by  the  home  government,  exist  in  considerable 
number.  They  are  impotent,  however,  to  reach  the  mass  of  the 
Italian  children.  The  adult  immigrants  have  largely  been  illiter- 
ate, and  most  are  content  that  their  children  should  receive  a 
modicum  only  of  education,  given  in  the  Argentine  schools.  The 
cultivated  readily  become  cosmopolitan,  and  are  as  likely,  it  is 
said,  to  read  French  books  as  Italian.  In  the  public  schools  the 
training  of  the  children  is  intensely  nationalistic  — to  a degree 
rare  in  other  countries.  Italians  who  read  may  patronize  Italian 
newspapers  in  Buenos  Aires,  but  they  do  so  not  to  the  exclusion  of 
the  great  Argentine  dailies.1 

Of  a cultural  life  among  the  Italians  in  Argentina  there  has  been 
little,  and  the  ties  with  Italy  that  would  sustain  it  are  tenuous. 
On  the  other  hand  an  extensive,  if  somewhat  peculiar,  develop- 
ment of  the  associative  life  has  taken  place.  In  1861,  in  Buenos 
Aires,  the  first  enduring  society,  La  Nazionale  Italiana,  wras  or- 
ganized. Fifty  years  later,  its  still  surviving  successors  numbered 
at  least  three  hundred.  Some  of  these  have  had  a charitable 
character,  but  most  have  been  mutual  aid  societies.  The  latter 
provide  for  their  members,  where  possible,  hospital  care,  medical 
aid — otherwise  very  costly  — drugs,  cash,  and  burial  expenses. 
Many  have  erected  attractive  and  even  beautiful  buildings  for 
their  headquarters,  and  in  order  to  protect  their  property  have 
become  incorporated.  Even  more  distinctive  than  the  large 
number  of  these  societies  is  their  regional  character,  the  emigrant 
from  one  part  of  Italy  not  being  admissible  to  a society  favoring 
another  part.  And  strangest  of  all  is  the  frequency  of  hostile  out- 
breaks, largely  personal  in  their  origin,  resulting  from  time  to 
time  in  schisms.  In  Chivilcoy,  Scardin  relates  with  humor,  a 
society  produced  by  such  a schism  bore  the  name  “ Union  and 
Brotherhood,”  and  because  of  additional  instances  he  dubs  this 
granary  of  Buenos  Aires  the  seed  ground  of  Italian  discords. 
Beyond  all  doubt  the  personal  and  regional  animosities  of  the 
Italians  in  Argentina,  as  indicated  in  their  associative  experience, 

1 On  the  schools,  see  de  Zettiry,  pp.  40-50,  64  f.;  Cam.  Ital.  di  Comm.,  pp.  219- 
23c  (also  the  volume  of  1906,  pp.  299-322);  Bevione,  p.  181;  Murri,  pp.  S6-S8. 


ARGENTINA.  GENERAL  ROLE  AND  INFLUENCE  273 

have  been  an  almost  insurmountable  block  to  the  rise  of  effective 
leadership  and  a check  upon  the  preservation  of  Italian  senti- 
ment.1 Not  least  noticeable  is  the  oft-lamented  absence,  or 
meager  development,  in  the  agricultural  colonies,  of  those  forms 
of  cooperative  production  and  consumption  which  in  North  Italy 
have  proved  of  such  great  value. 

Politically  the  immigrant  generation  has  played  but  a feeble 
role.  This  would  be  true,  even  if  other  things  were  not  involved, 
because  it  has  shown  so  little  capacity  to  organize  for  common 
action.  But  it  depends  further  upon  the  fact  that  there  has  been 
little  desire  to  acquire  citizenship.  To  have  reached  one’s  ma- 
jority and  been  two  years  in  residence,  or  to  have  married  an 
Argentine,  confers  the  right  to  obtain  naturalization.  Yet  in 
forty  years  after  1872,  less  than  six  thousand  immigrants  of  all 
nationalities  had  been  naturalized,  and  of  a paltry  269  in  the  year 
1915  only  121  were  Italian.2  These  are  astounding  facts  and  sug- 
gest the  possibility  that  not  only  the  Italians  but  also  the  Argen- 
tines have  not  cared  to  promote  naturalization.3 

It  is  not  without  interest  in  this  connection  to  observe  that  the 
Italians,  generally  passive  politically,  have  played  an  active  role 
in  radical  propaganda.  Vehemently,  as  socialists,  and  still  more, 
it  would  appear,  as  anarchists,  they,  along  with  the  Spanish  immi- 
grants, have  spread  subverting  ideas,  causing  “ great  alarm  to  the 
government.”  4 Of  very  late  years  radical  representatives  have 

1 Cam.  Ital.  di  Comm.,  pp.  231-242;  Alsiiia,  El  obrero,  etc.,  i,  pp.  88-101;  Zuc- 
carini,  pp.  178-182;  Scardin,  i,  pp.  97-104,  125-143,  ii,  pp.  61-65;  Godio,  pp.  372- 
399;  E.  Spiotti,  La  Repubblica  Argentina,  Annuario  dell’  emigrante  italiano,  Anno  II 
(Genoa,  1906),  pp.  221-229;  de  Zettiry,  pp.  65-71;  Brenna,  pp.  21  f.;  Tomezzoli, 
in  Boll.  Emig.,  1907,  No.  17,  p.  90;  Lupati,  pp.  240-246.  See  also,  on  associative 
life,  P.  Baroncelli-Grosson,  La  donna  della  Nuova  Italia  (Milan,  1917),  pp.  261-266. 

2 E.  Dickmann,  Los  argentinos  naturalizados  cn  la  polilica  (Buenos  Aires,  1915), 
pp.  23  f.  The  Mendoza  census  of  1909  discovered  only  96  naturalized  foreigners 
(Censo  general  de  la  provincia  de  Mendoza,  p.  30). 

3 A suggestion  that  satisfaction  in  the  foreigners’  not  voting  is  to  be  justified, 
partially  at  least,  by  the  fact  that  they  bring  monarchical  ideas  is  made  by  J. 
Alvarez,  Ensayo  sabre  la  historia  de  > Santa  Fe  (Buenos  Aires,  1910),  p.  410.  A much 
more  explicit  and  specific  study  is  by  A.  Saldias,  La  politique  italienne  au  Rio  de  la 
Plata  (Paris,  1889),  esp.  p.  32. 

4 Bryce,  p.  343.  Cf.  M.  Bilbao,  Buenos  Aires  desde  su  fundacidn  hasta  nuestros 
dias  (Buenos  Aires,  1902),  pp.  124-126. 


274 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


sometimes  exercised  a controlling  hand  in  the  national  legislature . 
Has  the  propaganda  advanced  by  the  immigrants  partly  made  for 
this  fruition  ? 

But  if  the  foreign-born  Italian  has  held  aloof  from  the  normal 
political  life  of  the  nation,  his  children  have  pursued  a different 
course,  very  freely  giving  themselves  up  to  their  social  and 
political  environment.1  They  have  perhaps  been  special  bene- 
ficiaries of  the  democratic  political  experience  of  the  rural  colonies. 
Many  a son  of  Italian  stock  has  become  the  jefe  politico  of  a pro- 
vincial community  and  now  and  then  has  found  his  way  into  the 
national  Congress.  What  visitors  from  Italy  to  Argentina  have 
frequently  lamented  was  remarked  also  by  Bryce:  that  the  chil- 
dren of  the  Italians  “ are,  perhaps,  even  more  vehemently  pa- 
triotic than  the  youth  of  native  stock.” 2 Hence  the  readiness,  on 
various  occasions  in  the  history  of  Argentina,  to  form  Italian 
regiments;  recently,  thousands  were  said  to  have  volunteered  to 
fight  in  the  threatened  war  with  Chili.3  At  one  time,  Italians  like 
to  recall,  the  son  of  an  Italian  engineer  and  political  refugee  rose 
to  be  president  of  the  republic.  Between  him  and  the  Italian 
colony,  however,  there  was  little  warmth  of  sentiment,  little 
confession  of  kinship,  for  Pellegrini,  like  every  patriotic  hi  jo  del 
pais,  could  not  reveal  sympathy  with  his  immigrant  stock  nor 
even  speak  its  language,  under  pain  of  being  scorned  as  a hijo  de 
grin go. 4 

It  may  be  that  some  embracing  contribution,  even  of  momen- 
tous consequence  to  the  future,  will  be  made  by  the  Italian  blood 
to  the  race  stock  of  Argentina.  The  ways  of  heredity  are  mys- 
terious enough  still,  yet  the  addition  of  so  much  North  Ital- 
ian stock,  notably  Piedmontese,  to  the  Argentine  population  is 
likely  to  be  of  lasting  value.  In  no  other  country  to  which  the 

1 As  long  ago  as  i860,  Martin  de  Moussy  (ii,  p.  289)  noted  the  rapidity  of  this 
assimilation,  and  many  have  noted  it  since. 

2 Bryce,  p.  339.  Cf.  Corradini,  II  volere  d’ Italia,  pp.  5 7-59.  On  the  colonial  ex- 
perience, see  Troisi,  pp.  107  f.;  Zeballos,  ii,  p.  273. 

3 Zuccarini,  pp.  184-226;  Murri,  p.  87. 

4 G.  Modrich,  Repubblica  Argentina,  note  di  viaggio  (Milan,  1890),  pp.  131  f. 
Cf.  Zuccarini,  p.  325. 


ARGENTINA.  GENERAL  ROLE  AND  INFLUENCE 


Italians  have  emigrated  have  they  constituted  so  large  a part  of 
the  population.  Out  of  the  half  million  Italians  present  in  1895 
and  the  700,000  and  more  who  have  settled  since  (I  exclude  the 
repatriated)  there  may  still  survive  close  upon  one  million  — an 
eighth,  perhaps  a seventh,  of  the  population  of  the  country. 

But  that  is  not  all.  When  Rossi,  in  1913,  made  his  journey 
through  Santa  Fe,  studying  the  affairs  of  the  colonies,  talking 
with  their  members,  he  stopped  at  the  farm  of  one  Pincirolli 
Aquilino,  formerly  of  Busto  Arsizia.  This  immigrant,  twenty- 
three  when  he  came,  had  broadened  his  acres  as  the  years  had 
rolled  by  and  now  reached  beyond  the  age  of  seventy. 

“ How  many  children  have  you  ? ” asked  Rossi. 

“ By  two  wives  I have  had  eighteen;  fourteen  are  living.” 

“ And  some  are  married  ? ” 

“ Eh,  that’s  another  story!  Counting  daughters-in-law  and  grand- 
children, we  are  more  than  seventy.” 

Such,  adds  Rossi,  are  the  families  that  are  increasing  the  popula- 
tion of  this  country.1  As  a matter  of  fact,  families  of  this  size  have 
been  uncommon,  but  families  of  ten  or  twelve  children  have  been 
frequent.2  The  tradition  in  Italy  had  been  one  of  large  families. 
But  here,  much  more  than  there,  a wife  on  the  farm,  and  often  in 
the  city,  cost  less  than  she  earned;  and  every  child,  in  this  coun- 
try of  high  wages,  was  a helper  in  production.  Women  married 
young  — in  a large  proportion  of  cases,  between  fifteen  and 
twenty.  The  span  of  years  from  generation  to  generation  was 
short.  The  less  thrifty  Argentine  of  the  older  stock  married  later : 
if  poor,  he  could  not  soon  afford  a wife  who  would  not  help  him  to 
earn;  if  rich,  he  would  postpone  marriage  as  the  rich  do.  In 
either  case,  his  generation  span  would  be  larger;  and  his  family 
was  smaller. 

It  is  fairly  certain  that  the  Argentines  of  Italian  blood  now  ex- 
ceed in  number  the  Italians.  So  it  is  reasonable  to  claim  that  the 
Italians,  their  children  and  children’s  children,  number  today 

1 Rossi,  p.  8. 

2 I have  dealt  statistically  with  this  and  related  topics  in  an  article,  “ The  Italian 
Factor  in  the  Argentine  Race  Stock,”  in  Quarterly  Publications  of  the  American 
Statistical  Association,  June,  1919,  pp.  347-360. 


2j6  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

appreciably  more  than  two  million  and  probably  are  30  per  cent 
or  more  of  the  population  of  the  country.1  In  Argentina  the  Ital- 
ians found  a country  of  small  population  to  which  they  could  come 
in  large  numbers  and  to  an  important  extent  they  have  made  it, 
racially  speaking,  their  own.  Of  intermarriage  with  the  older 
stock  there  has  been  little,  but  a half  century  more  must  largely 
fuse  the  strains.  Not  to  the  same  extent  will  the  two  civilizations 
fuse,  because  much  that  the  Italians  have  brought,  such  as  their 
language,  must  be  content  with  fractional  preservation,  must  bow 
to  the  sterner  standard  established  and  made  current  before  they 
came.  Blood,  however,  knows  no  standard  save  its  own.  And 
that  is  why,  if  Italian  immigration  were  today  wholly  to  cease, 
never  to  be  revived,  the  Italian  influence  would  forever  count  in 
Argentina,  breathing  a characteristic  spirit  into  the  political  and 
social  institutions  of  the  land.  Herein  lies  the  great  difference 
between  an  immigration  of  gold  and  an  immigration  of  men. 
Some  day  the  millions  of  English  capital,  so  timely  and  conse- 
quential when  they  came,  may  be  withdrawn,  just  as  still  more 
millions  have  in  the  Great  War  been  withdrawn  from  the  United 
States;  but  the  Italian  contribution  of  blood  to  Argentina  will 
remain. 

It  is  not  impossible  today  to  detect  some  of  the  influences  that 
will  play  upon  the  future  course  of  Italian  immigration  into 
Argentina.  Much  of  what  has  made  the  country  attractive  in  the 
past  will  continue.2  But  much  also  that  w^as  attractive  has  al- 
ready declined.  From  July,  1911,  to  August,  1912,  the  Italian 
government  suspended  emigration  to  the  republic.  Ostensibly, 
and  in  part  actually,  this  was  because  it  was  unwilling  to  accept 
an  Argentine  order  which  would  have  put  Argentine  sanitary 
inspectors  on  board  Italian  immigrant  ships.  Not  so,  if  one  may 
guess,  would  the  government  have  reacted  a decade  earlier.  In 
the  interval,  for  several  years  before  1911,  Argentina  had  become 

1 For  the  grounds  of  this  claim,  see  Foerster,  op.  cit. 

2 When  the  country  folk  of  Calabria  were  asked  what  determined  their  choice  of 
a destination,  many  replied,  the  climate.  The  answer  was  characteristic  of  the 
communes  from  which  emigration  had  proceeded  to  Argentina.  Inch.  Pari,  v", 
P-  723- 


ARGENTINA.  GENERAL  ROLE  AND  INFLUENCE  2JJ 

less  generous  to  the  Italians,  Tomezzoli’s  tale  of  abuses  had  been 
told  and  more  or  less  confirmed,1  and  no  serious  loss,  it  now  was 
felt,  could  come  from  vigorous  and  indignant  action. 

Perhaps,  just  as  earlier  interruptions,  such  as  the  Paraguay  war 
and  the  yellow  fever  epidemic  (when  9000  Italians  lost  their 
lives)  were  temporary,  the  new  interruptions  may  be.  Yet  the 
citizen  of  the  older  strains  has  today  little  love  for  the  immigrant 
Italian,  and  takes  him  only  for  gain.2  Such  a law  as  the  anti- 
anarchist act  has  apparently  been  an  instrument  for  class  oppres- 
sion. The  Italian  is  felt  to  be  a person  to  be  assimilated.  Much 
of  the  opposition  against  him,  quite  as  in  the  past,  will  in  the 
future  accomplish  nothing.  Yet  this  opposition,  though  some  of 
its  ingredients  are  peculiar  to  Argentina,  has  much  in  common 
with  a reaction  that  we  have  met  in  other  countries,  and  it  may 
work  similar  results.  In  Argentina  the  first  warm  protest  against 
stimulation  of  immigration  was  coincident  with  the  first  work- 
men’s movements  in  the  country.  In  its  initial  programme,  in 
1895,  and  continuously  since,  the  socialist  party  has  demanded  the 
suppression  of  all  special  invitation  to  immigrants.  And  a recent 
law  is  quite  as  rigorously  selective  in  its  terms  as  the  United 
States  legislation  that  antedated  the  literacy  test  enactment.3 

As  the  Argentine  nation  assumes  more  definite  form,  as  a larger 
portion  of  it  rises  out  of  the  immigrant  stratum,  it  could  not  be 

1 It  perhaps  deserves  note  that  after  publication  of  the  reports  of  Tomezzoli, 
the  subject  of  Argentina  was  for  two  and  a half  years  almost  wholly  ignored  in  the 
special  articles  of  the  official  Boll.  Emig. 

2 It  is  curious  to  find  in  a governmental  work  such  a candid  statement  as  the 
following,  which  I give  in  the  official  English  version:  “ The  present-day  estanciero, 
owner  of  a large  estate,  such  as  those  of  which  there  are  still  of  20  to  50  square 
leagues,  at  least  cordially  detests  the  settler,  the  husbandman,  the  people  that  come 
in  swarms.  He  uses  them  for  the  time  being  because  he  cannot  help  himself,  in 
order  to  fit  his  lands  for  carrying  plenty  of  stock  ” ( Agricultural  and  Pastoral  Cen- 
sus, 1908,  iii,  p.  15).  Cf.  Salaverria  on  the  golondrina,  p.  209.  Italian  writings 
abound  in  expressions  of  Argentine  antipathy:  e.g.,  Murri,  p.  85;  Bevione,  passim', 
P.  Micheli,  “ Gli  italiani  nell’  Argentina,”  LTtalia  Coloniale,  August  and  Septem- 
ber, 1903,  p.  863. 

3 This  new  law  accords  fairly  with  the  recommendations  made  by  Alsina  some 
years  ago  (La  inmigracion  en  la  primer  siglo  de  la  independencia,  Buenos  Aires, 
1910,  ch.  v),  but  is  the  fruit  of  the  efforts,  particularly,  of  the  socialist  Enrique 
Dickmann. 


278 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


surprising  if  the  movement  for  selection  were  followed  by  some 
demand  for  restriction.  But  does  not  the  Argentine  Constitution 
still  forbid  the  erection  of  legislative  barriers  against  European 
immigration  ? Beyond  all  doubt  the  spirit  of  the  present  law, 
whether  interpreted  by  its  friends  or  its  foes,  is  strongly  restric- 
tionist,  and  the  same  spirit  may  in  the  future  find  other  effective 
means — perhaps  a literacy  test  — of  constitutionally  accomplish- 
ing the  same  result.  We  cannot  foresee,  and  must  remember  that 
in  these  things  there  is  some  swing  of  the  pendulum  and  that  a 
revival  of  immigration,  resting  upon  new  conditions,  may  be  the 
next  step.  But  the  restrictionist  spirit  is  there  and  must  be  reck- 
oned with,  since  hitherto,  in  other  lands,  it  has  grown  and  not 
declined,  and  since  in  Australia  and  the  United  States,  likewise 
new  countries,  it  has  succeeded  in  making  the  laws. 


CHAPTER  XV 


BRAZIL.  I.  THE  COFFEE  PLANTATIONS 

Before  i 850,  Italian  immigrants  into  Brazil  were  few.  Capuchin 
missionaries  who  came  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  cen- 
turies — a type  with  heroic  attributes  — were  followed  in  the 
early  nineteenth  by  Genoese  mariners,  musicians  errant,  some 
painters,  decorators  and  the  like,  and  numerous  political  refugees.1 
Not  least  among  the  last-named  was  the  keeper  of  a modest 
butcher  shop  in  the  imperial  capital,  the  far-faring  Garibaldi,  who 
married  a Brazilian  bride. 

Together  these  were  only  the  lisping  prologue  to  a mighty 
movement.  The  history  of  the  great  period  of  Italian  immigra- 
tion tells  of  an  abruptly  acquired  impetus,  a long  and  hectic 
advance  with  occasional  retreat,  then  a spectacular  collapse  and  a 
stagnant  aftermath.  If  only  because  it  involved  the  lives  and 
fortunes  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  human  beings,  this  history 
could  claim  to  be  heard.  For  the  Italians  who  arrived  in  Brazil 
before  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth  century  outnumbered  those 
who  in  the  same  time  went  to  the  United  States.  To  Brazil  and 
to  the  world,  as  it  befell,  they  rendered  a service  not  to  be  forgot- 
ten. If  many  of  them  found  for  their  mead  only  unhappiness  and 
disillusionment,  that  is  still  a further  reason  for  trying  to  under- 
stand their  unexampled  adventure. 

For  three  centuries  and  a quarter  after  its  discovery,  Brazil  was 
not  a country  of  immigration.  Portugal,  the  motherland,  not 
only  forbade  foreigners  to  enter  her  possession,  but  greatly  re- 
stricted the  travel  of  her  own  subjects.  Although,  by  good  for- 
tune, these  and  other  checks  upon  colonial  freedom  were  less 
galling  than  those  of  Spain  in  Argentina,  the  growth  of  the  country 

1 See  M.  Napoli  and  N.  Belli,  La  colonia  italiana  di  Rio  de  Janeiro  (Rio  de 
Janeiro,  1911),  p.  46,  for  details  of  a survey  of  the  Italians  made  in  1843. 


279 


28o 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


was  none  the  less  slow  and  involved  generally  the  exploitation  of 
only  the  more  obvious  resources.  The  Indians  being  few  and  not 
a satisfactory  labor  force,  negro  slaves  began  to  be  imported  in 
large  numbers,  and  for  three  centuries  were  the  principal  laborers. 
Out  of  a diversity  of  racial  origins  there  grew  up  in  time  a society 
of  amazing  heterogeneity:  the  pure  Portuguese  were  an  aristoc- 
racy; under  them  were  the  Indians,  the  herds  of  negro  slaves,  the 
caboclos  (half-breeds),  and  the  mulattoes.  In  such  a society, 
divided  by  lines  of  caste,  no  great  political  or  economic  capacity 
was  likely  to  arise. 

One  encouraging  token  in  this  otherwise  discouraging  social 
state  was  its  partial  consciousness  of  its  weakness,  its  realization, 
voiced  as  early  as  1808,  that  some  day  its  universal  slave  system 
must  give  way  to  a better  system  and  better  laborers.  In  that 
year  a decree  of  the  prince  regent  gave  to  the  government  au- 
thority to  concede  lands  to  foreigners.  From  the  point  of  view  of 
our  own  times,  however,  the  premature  and  unsuccessful  Swiss 
colony  of  Nova  Friburgo,  founded  in  1818,  seems  less  a product  of 
the  colonial  period  than  a herald  of  what  the  independence  year 
1822  would  make  feasible.  Next,  by  contract  with  the  imperial 
government,  the  Germans  established  themselves  in  a colony 
called  Sao  Leopoldo,  in  the  neighborhood  of  Porto  Alegre,  but  the 
civil  war  of  1831-43  blocked  their  further  coming.  In  the  years 
before  1850,  upon  imperial  or  provincial  initiative,  various  colo- 
nies were  founded,  but  they  came  to  little.  It  was  not  yet  an 
auspicious  time  for  immigration.  The  entire  realm  was  disturbed, 
lightly  peopled,  poor. 

As  in  colonial  days,  the  sluggish  life  of  the  country  still  centered 
in  the  sugar-yielding  North,  about  Pernambuco  and  Bahia.  The 
planting  of  European  colonies  had  been  practicable  only  in  the 
South.  The  difficulty  of  substituting  European  for  dark-skinned 
labor  in  the  torrid  regions  wras  to  explain  the  reluctance  with 
which,  later  on,  the  Northern  slave  owners  consented  to  abandon 
the  slave  system.  The  new  colonies  which  private  persons 
founded  after  1840  were,  like  their  governmental  forerunners, 
located  in  the  South.  It  was  a Paulist  senator,  Vergueiro,  of 
enduring  memory,  who,  as  early  as  1841,  established  upon  his 


BRAZIL.  THE  COFFEE  PLANTATIONS 


28l 


fazenda  ninety  Portuguese  families;  and,  not  daunted  by  their 
failure  to  stay,  brought  over,  in  1847,  eighty  German  families. 
The  imperial  government  had  advanced  the  passage  money  of 
these  immigrants  which  they,  having  succeeded,  were  able  to 
restore  in  a stipulated  three-years  time.  Vergueiro’s  estate 
Ybicaba  so  acquired  the  distinction  of  being  the  first  to  employ 
European  labor  in  coffee  production.  In  the  years  after  1852,  the 
scheme  of  this  enterprising  grower  and  merchant  was  widely 
emulated.  It  had  savored,  regrettably  — in  the  importation  of 
families  en  masse  and  in  their  establishment  in  an  industry  in 
which  slaves  were  still  mainly  employed  — - of  the  slave-importa- 
tion tradition  itself.1 

Still  another  device  for  securing  immigrants,  mingling  public 
policy  with  private  interest,  was  the  colonization  company.  By 
paying  small  sums  of  money,  many  such  companies  or  societies, 
during  the  third  quarter  of  the  century,  secured  large  tracts  of 
public  land,  which  they  obligated  themselves  to  break  up  into 
lots  and  colonize.  The  lands  were  usually  near  the  railways,  and 
were  offered  on  attractive  terms:  the  colonists  might  receive 
advances  from  the  company,  had  six  years  in  which  to  pay  for 
their  allotments,  were  charged  no  interest  for  two  years,  and 
thereafter  at  a rate  not  exceeding  six  per  cent.2 

In  1875  there  were  still  in  existence  twelve  colonies  established 
by  the  imperial  government,  fifteen  by  the  provincial  govern- 
ments, and  twenty-five  by  private  interests.3  The  imperial  col- 
onies were  often  remote  and  ill-managed  and  their  settlers  dis- 
illusioned. Of  the  provincial  and  private  enterprises  many  were 
no  more  prosperous.  Although  there  were  outstanding  successful 
instances  of  each  type,  the  development  as  a whole  fell  far  short 
of  that  in  Argentina. 

The  fifty-two  colonies  existing  in  1875  contained  some  48,000 
inhabitants.  What  had  become  of  all  the  immigrants  — six 

1 On  the  history  of  Vergueiro’s  scheme,  see  V.  Grossi,  Storia  della  colonizzazione 
europea  al  Brasile  (2d  ed.,  Milan,  etc.,  1914),  pp.  169-17S. 

2 Ibid.,  pp.  181-185;  G.  B.  Marchesini,  II  Brasile  e le  sue  colonic  agricole 
(Rome,  1877),  pp.  96-106. 

3 See  the  valuable  table  of  colonies  founded  since  1812  appended  to  A.  de  Car- 
valho, 0 Brazil  — colonisaqao  e emigraqdo  (2d  ed.,  Oporto,  1876). 


282 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


times  as  many  as  these  — who  in  the  preceding  quarter  century 
had  entered  Brazil  ? Many  of  them  were  persons  who  had  con- 
tracted with  the  planters  to  settle  on  their  estates  (as  at  Ybicaba), 
many  others  were  former  colonists  who  had  given  up  for  disap- 
pointment or  whatever  reason  and  gone  to  the  plantations  or  the 
cities,  and  still  others  were  “ spontaneous  ” immigrants  (in  the 
official  phrase),  not  “ colonists,”  who  had  begun  to  come  in  in- 
creasing numbers  and  who  went  especially  to  the  cities. 

It  was  while  these  efforts  were  being  made  to  establish  nuclei  of 
European  agricultural  settlers  that  it  became  more  and  more 
clear  that  profound  changes  were  to  take  place  in  the  exploitation 
of  the  country’s  resources.  Of  the  memorable  chapter  about  to 
unfold  there  had  begun  to  be  hints.  Slowly  the  economic  center 
of  the  country  had  been  shifting.  The  European  settlements,  all 
in  the  South,  were  only  an  incidental  evidence  of  this.  The  prov- 
ince of  Sao  Paulo,  not  long  since  a thinly  inhabited  grazing 
region,  where,  as  late  as  1871,  there  were  only  86  miles  of  railway 
(owned  by  an  English  company),  now  began  to  discover  unguessed 
virtues  in  its  endless  stretches  of  violet  soil.  Coffee  plantations 
there  had  been  for  scores  of  years  back.  But  that  there  could  be 
more,  and  more,  and  still  more,  no  one  had  had  the  imagination  to 
see.  A railroad  was  opened  into  the  Northwest,  to  Ribeirao  Preto ; 
immigrants  from  Europe  increased  the  output  of  various  fazendas ; 
and  although,  in  the  entire  period  from  1855  to  1885,  a steady 
expansion  of  the  harvest  of  coffee  took  place,  an  unperturbed 
market  absorbed  it  all.  Before  this  time  had  quite  elapsed  the 
notion  seemed,  of  a sudden,  to  have  struck  the  planters  that  the 
limits  to  profitable  production  were  too  remote  to  be  discerned. 
Were  not  the  fortunate  among  them  reaping  gains  of  50  or  60  per 
cent  upon  their  costs  ? Not  the  sugar  of  the  North  but  the  coffee 
of  the  South  was  to  be  the  golden  key  to  the  economic  future  of 
Brazil.  That  became  dazzlingly  clear.  0 cafe  e ouro  — “ coffee 
is  gold  ” — men  said.  Surely  the  new  treasure  would  flow  in  a 
steadier,  more  generous  stream  than  that  mineral  gold  which  had 
been  the  spent  dream  of  the  previous  century. 

But  who  was  to  mine  the  new  gold  ? Once  the  Indians  had  been 
slaves,  but  they  were  finally  liberated  in  1755.  Now  the  negroes 


BRAZIL.  TEE  COFFEE  PLANTATIONS 


283 


were  slaves,  toilers  in  the  coffee  fazendas.  As  early,  however,  as 
1831,  the  legal  importation  of  negro  slaves  into  Brazil  had  been 
stopped,  and  about  1850  the  extra-legal,  covert  importation  like- 
wise ceased.  In  substituting  Europeans  for  slaves,  Senator  Ver- 
gueiro  had  been  a practical  seer.  North  of  the  Equator  a bloody 
conflict  presently  rooted  out  the  most  stubborn  slave  system  of 
modern  times  — could  a civilized  country  southward  hold  to  a 
lower  standard  ? A law  of  1871  now  conferred  freedom  upon  every 
child  henceforth  born  of  a slave  mother.  The  institution  was 
tottering,  would  next  collapse.  Who  meanwhile  was  to  plant  and 
gather  the  red  berries  ? 

It  was  an  era  which  those  who  lived  in  it  knew  to  be  critical. 
In  an  elaborate  study  prepared  for  the  Ministry  of  Agriculture, 
Industry,  and  Public  Works  at  Rio  de  Janeiro  in  1875,  the  author 
Menezes  e Souza  counselled  quick  action  (in  a Portuguese  style 
which  I have  ventured  somewhat  to  deflate !) : 

The  question  which  urgently  presses  for  solution  is  this.  Brazil  is 
menaced  by  an  imminent  crisis.  The  gradual  emancipation  from  slavery 
which  the  spirit  of  liberty,  favored  by  Christianity,  will  shortly  render  final 
and  complete,  has  deprived  our  economic  system  of  its  principal  labor  force. 
Day  by  day  the  cultivation  of  coffee,  chief  source  of  the  public  wealth,  is 
declining  and  in  a few  years  it  will  lie  in  the  paroxysms  of  a final  death  agony. 
The  inevitable  economic  transformation  of  the  country  is  not  to  be  realized 
in  a short  time,  but  indeed  only  with  slowness.  Not  for  a moment  may  we 
hesitate  in  procuring  a substitute  for  the  arms  which  increasingly  fail  us, 
abandoning  the  fields,  the  mills,  and  the  factories,  and  forcing  the  workers 
who  remain  to  shoulder  difficulties  which  cannot  be  avoided  and  to  make 
sacrifices  which  cannot  be  recompensed.1 

Within  fifteen  years  after  1875  twice  as  many  immigrants 
entered  Brazil  as  in  the  previous  twenty-five  years.  But  to  Sao 

1 J.  C.  Menezes  e Souza,  Theses  sobre  colonizaqao  do  Brazil  (Rio  de  Janeiro,  1875), 
pp.  354  f.  It  is  hardly  beside  the  question,  at  this  point,  to  note  the  author’s 
opinion  of  the  Italians.  They  go,  he  said,  to  Algiers  and  the  Plata,  and  are  good  at 
gardening,  housebuilding,  and  road  making;  some  pursue  small  industries  in  Brazil, 
or  itinerant  trading;  they  are  characterized  by  perseverance,  sobriety  and  thrift, 
but:  “They  are  not  useful  in  agriculture!”  Ibid.,  p.  409.  He  was  not  alone. 
The  historian  J.  M.  Pereira  da  Silva,  who  in  1865  held  that  colonization  should  be 
regarded  as  the  central  and  dominating  policy  of  Brazil,  believed  that  only  the  Ger- 
mans and  the  Swiss  were  suited  to  the  needs  of  Brazil.  See  his  Situation  sociale, 
politique  et  economique  de  P empire  du  Bresil  (Rio  de  Janeiro,  1865),  pp.  104,  108  f.; 
c:'.'.  entire  ch.  vii. 


284  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

Paulo,  in  a dozen  years,  1875-86,  nearly  four  times  as  many  came 
as  in  the  previous  years.  The  practice  of  many  planters  in  them- 
selves advancing  the  passage  fare  of  immigrants  led  the  province 
in  1880  and  in  1888  (there  had  been  a somewhat  similar  act  in 
1871)  to  enact  laws  providing  a subsidy  for  paying  the  transporta- 
tion charge  to  Sao  Paulo. 

In  the  year  1888  slavery  was  abolished.  For  years  the  deaths 
of  slaves,  even  where  treatment  had  been  good,  had  greatly  ex- 
ceeded the  births.  The  three  million  slaves  of  1850  had  been 
thinned,  it  was  estimated,  to  two  million  in  1871  when  the  law 
of  “ the  free  womb  ” was  enacted.  Public  opinion  had  backed 
Dom  Pedro’s  efforts  for  emancipation.  Understanding  what  was 
ahead,  the  slaves  had  become  increasingly  indolent  and  unman- 
ageable. While  the  North  had  remained  the  stronghold  of  the 
institution,  the  Paulist  aristocracy  came  to  desire  its  termination. 
Many  planters  had  been  virtually  freeing  their  slaves  for  some 
time.  And  the  market  price  of  these  workers  had  in  anticipation 
of  abolition  dropped  to  almost  nothing. 

The  decline  in  the  quality  of  slave  labor,  the  expected  extirpa- 
tion of  the  system,  and  the  coming  of  foreigners  were  all  inextri- 
cably bound  up  together:  all  were  cause  and  all  were  effect,  at 
least  in  the  decade  or  two  before  1888.  It  is  improbable  that  the 
foreigners  would  have  come  in  such  numbers,  had  not  abolition 
been  in  prospect.  In  the  years  between  the  last  two  luminous 
dates  in  the  history  of  its  downfall,  1871  and  1888,  two  hundred 
thousand  Italians  arrived.  Abolition  could  be  greeted  with  more 
equanimity  if  such  laborers  were  to  offer  themselves  to  the 
planters.  In  fact,  had  immigrants  not  come,  the  movement  could 
hardly  have  made  its  astonishing  headway.  In  a sense,  Ybicaba 
had  been  the  beginning  of  abolition.  What  is  more,  the  resident 
foreigners  had  nearly  always  sustained  the  efforts  of  the  reformist 
Brazilians.  Of  the  Italians  one  careful  writer  has  even  said: 
“ They  have  ever  been  enthusiastic  partisans  of  emancipation. 
It  was  the  small  Italian  itinerant  trader,  the  mascate,  who  went 
hither  and  thither  on  the  plantation,  who  put  himself  into  com- 
munication with  the  blacks,  announced  to  them  that  the  hour  of 
deliverance  was  at  hand,  and  told  them  of  the  efforts  which  un- 


BRAZIL.  THE  COFFEE  PLANTATIONS  285 

known  friends  were  making  in  their  behalf.  Sometimes  he 
counselled  them  to  quit  their  plantations.”  1 Even  the  hope  that 
foreigners  would  be  drawn  to  Brazil  counted.  “ The  most  pa- 
triotic Brazilians  have  often  said  that  there  could  be  no  serious 
thought  of  the  coming  of  European  immigrants  before  slavery  was 
abolished.”  2 

After  the  shock  of  so  stupendous  a social  change,  it  was  reason- 
able to  expect  a period  of  readjustment.  Expectation,  however, 
and  precedent  were  alike  flouted,  when  the  country,  instead  of 
lying  depressed  for  years,  leaped,  almost  in  a frenzy,  to  a prosperity 
it  had  never  known  before.  No  check  came  from  the  political 
revolution  of  1889,  which,  having  deposed  the  aged  emperor  after 
his  half  century  of  reign,  instituted  in  1892  a federal  republic.  It 
was  an  epoch  of  numerous  measures  planned  to  procure  immi- 
grants on  a gigantic  scale.  Sao  Paulo,  in  October,  1885,  had  pro- 
vided by  law  for  the  importation  of  immigrants  under  contract  by 
companies,  to  whom  the  price  of  their  passage  was  to  be  reim- 
bursed. Next,  the  fazendeiros  organized  a Sociedade  Paulista 
Promotora  de  Immigraqdo  which  received  from  the  province  the 
almost  exclusive  conduct  of  its  immigration  service;  through  it 
126,000  immigrants  were  imported  by  1895 — despite  the  fact 
that  the  naval  and  civil  war  of  1893-94,  supervening  upon  the 
establishment  of  the  new  government,  had  made  it  difficult  for  a 
time  to  persuade  new  immigrants  to  come. 

For  a climax,  in  this  era  of  frantic  endeavor,  the  new  federal 
government  contracted,  in  August,  1892,  with  the  Companhia 
Metropolitana  for  the  introduction  within  ten  years  of  one  million 
immigrants.  How  soon  the  unsuitability  of  this  arrangement 
was  to  be  shown ! The  company’s  troubles  came  in  quick  order. 
In  1895,  after  the  interruption  caused  by  the  war  aforesaid,  the 
cholera  suddenly  appeared  in  Espirito  Santo,  and  during  a period 
of  months  the  Italian  government  suspended  emigration  to  that 
state.  The  world-wide  business  difficulties  of  these  years  were 

1 M.  E.  da  Silva-Prado,  ch.  xvi  in  M.  F.-J.  de  Santa-Anna  Nery  (ed.),  Le 
Bresil  en  i88g  (Paris,  1889),  pp.  489-491. 

2 Ibid.,  p.  491. 


286 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


keenly  felt  in  Brazil  and  accentuated  there  by  violent  fluctuations 
in  the  exchange  ratio  of  paper  and  gold.  The  administrative 
problem  of  receiving  and  placing  the  masses  of  immigrants  who 
disembarked  took  on  ever  more  awkward  forms  and  presently  be- 
came almost  unmanageable.  Soon  both  the  federal  government 
and  the  Companhia  were  glad  to  retreat  from  their  bold  scheme. 
It  was  a signal  which  those  states  that  had  embarked  on  similar 
projects  were  ready  to  follow.  Sao  Paulo  stood  alone  in  continu- 
ing to  make  contracts  for  the  importation  of  thousands  of  immi- 
grants at  her  own  expense.  By  the  terms  of  a law  enacted  in 
1899  workers  on  the  fazendas  could  indicate  what  persons  they 
would  like  to  have  come  to  the  state  and  the  Hospedaria  of  the 
immigration  service  would  offer  to  pay  their  way.  In  that  year 
the  practice  was  begun  of  stating  annually  how  many  persons 
would  be  wanted  during  the  year  and  of  enabling  their  passage. 
Sao  Paulo  in  1902  had  agreements  with  four  firms  to  bring  in 
respectively  14,000,  7000,  7000  and  2000  immigrants.  Not  being 
fulfilled  within  the  year,  the  contracts  were  allowed  to  run  be- 
yond, but  for  some  time  thereafter  no  new  ones  were  made.  A 
main  reason  for  this  is  doubtless  that,  in  the  same  year,  the 
Prinetti  decree  suspended  the  emigration  to  any  part  of  Brazil 
from  Italian  ports  of  all  Italian  subjects  not  paying  their  own 
passage.  The  blow  struck  hard,  and  was  resented.  But  that  it 
struck  justly  the  state  of  Sao  Paulo  tacitly  acknowledged  when, 
at  about  the  same  time,  it  forbade  (by  means  of  a prohibitory  tax) 
the  further  planting  of  coffee  trees. 

Between  1888  and  1898  the  number  of  shrubs  had  tripled.1 
The  limits  to  profitable  coffee  production,  not  discernible  a 
decade  earlier,  had  been  not  merely  achieved  but  exceeded.  The 
flame  fed  and  fanned  so  persistently  had  burned  itself  out.  It 
was  realized  that,  since  four  years  are  necessary  before  a new  tree 
yields  berries  and  six  before  it  touches  its  maximum  flowering, 
the  country  was  on  the  threshold  of  a formidable  overproduction 
— the  world  price  of  coffee  could  not  stand  the  assault.  For  the 
planters,  the  darkness  of  failure  lay  ahead.  They  were  prepared 
to  make  a desperate  effort  to  prop  up  the  world  price.  Killing 

1 A.  Laliere,  Le  cafe  dans  I’etat  de  Saint  Patti  (Paris,  1909),  p.  36. 


BRAZIL.  THE  COFFEE  PLANTATIONS 


287 


frosts  would  be  a blessing  and  were  generally  desired.  Repeatedly, 
the  burning  of  large  parts  of  the  crop  was  threatened.1  But  what 
finally  came  forth  from  the  planters’  tribulations  was  a gigantic 
governmental  scheme  of  valorization,  which,  while  it  strained  the 
credit  of  the  state  of  Sao  Paulo,  did  accomplish  what  was  hoped  : 
the  withholding  of  the  supply  from  the  world’s  market  until  the 
world’s  demand  could  rise  to  meet  it.  Truly  in  Sao  Paulo  the 
fazendeiros  are  the  State.  Hence  their  plan,  like  the  previous 
subsidization  of  immigration,  has  the  lineaments  of  a colossal 
cooperative  undertaking.2 

According  to  the  Brazilian  count,  which  in  the  early  years  was 
far  from  trustworthy,  1,227,040  Italians  immigrated  in  the  period 
1820-1908,  constituting  nearly  half  of  all  arrivals.  Before  1875, 
however,  they  were  a small  group.  The  five  Italians  recorded  to 
have  come  to  the  province  of  Sao  Paulo  in  that  year  were  the  first 
enumerated  in  a half  century’s  immigration  of  over  11,000; 3 the 
rest  were  chiefly  Germans  and  Portuguese.  In  1875-86,  20,966 
Italians  entered  Sao  Paulo,  outnumbering  the  Portuguese,  and 
equalling  one-half  of  all  comers.  In  1887-1906,  years  which  in- 
cluded the  boom,  the  Italians  admitted  to  Sao  Paulo  were  actually 
804,598  or  two-thirds  of  all,  the  Portuguese  once  more  ranking 
next.  Is  it  surprising  that  the  inhabitants  of  that  province,  later 
state,  should  have  risen  from  1,221,394  in  1886  (a  census)  to 
2,570,000  in  1903  (the  Minister  of  Agriculture’s  estimate),  and  in 
later  years  to  more  than  three  million,  and  that  those  of  the  city 
of  Sao  Paulo  should  have  increased  nearly  tenfold  between  1883 
and  1907,  attaining  a third  of  a million  ? Into  Rio  Grande  do  Sul, 
in  1885-95,  Italian  immigrants  numbered  some  56,000,  being 
four-fifths  of  all.  In  1903,  more  Italians  departed  from  Brazil 
than  arrived,  and  thereafter  increased  departures  and  reduced 

1 It  probably  did  not  take  place,  the  statement  to  the  contrary,  notwithstanding, 
of  J.  C.  Oakenfull,  Brazil  in  igog  (prepared  for  the  Brazilian  Government  Commis- 
sion of  Propaganda  and  Economic  Expansion,  and  published,  Paris,  1909),  p.  152. 

2 F.  Ferreira  Ramos,  La  question  de  la  valorisation  du  cafe  au  Bresil  (Antwerp, 
1907);  Laliere,  pp.  361-417. 

3 There  were  probably  more,  however.  See  C.  Usiglio,  “ L’emigrazione  nel 
Brasile,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1908,  No.  7,  p.  25. 


288 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


arrivals  became  the  rule.  The  stream  has  continued  to  flow  sub- 
stantially into  Sao  Paulo,  embracing,  as  the  record  declares, 
some  24,000  individuals  a year  in  1912  and  1913,  or  considerably 
more  than  the  average  of  14,000  for  the  years  1 903-1 3. 1 Into 
other  parts  of  Brazil,  Italian  immigrants  have  recently  numbered 
but  few  thousands.2  More  and  more  they  have  been  eclipsed 
by  the  inpouring  Portuguese  and,  in  some  years,  even  by  the 
Spanish. 

Only  guesses  exist  to  tell  us  how  many  Italians  the  provinces, 
later  states,  have  contained.  For  the  Brazilian  censuses  have 
been  scant,  wild,  and  unsafe.  Moreover,  the  national  government, 
eager  for  citizens,  regarded  as  Brazilians  all  foreigners  who  did  not 
themselves  by  a certain  date  demand  the  privilege  of  retaining 
their  nationality.  Italian  estimates,  on  the  other  hand,  have 
commonly  embraced  not  only  the  immigrants,  but  also  their 
Brazil-born  children,  since  the  members  of  both  groups  are  held 
to  be  Italian  subjects.  Children  born  in  Brazil  must  in  the  earlier 
years  have  been  few. 

In  1892  consular  representatives  of  Italy  claimed  that  there 
were  in  Sao  Paulo  300,000  Italians,  in  Santa  Catharina  50,000,  in 
Rio  Grande  do  Sul  and  Matto  Grosso  (chiefly  the  former)  100,000, 
in  the  city  and  district  of  Rio  de  Janeiro  20,000,  in  Minas  Geraes 
10,000,  and  in  Espirito  Santo  2o,ooo.3  A rough  census  of  1900 
reported  58,466  in  Rio  Grande  do  Sul,  together  with  15,711  Ger- 
mans and  7051  Portuguese  in  a population  of  1,149, 000. 4 By 
1906-08  , according  to  new  consular  estimates,  resting  upon  various 
sorts  of  evidence,  the  Italians  in  leading  states  numbered: 


Amazonas 

2,000 

Parand 

20,000 

Bahia  

. . 3,000-4,000 

Rio  de  Janeiro 

. . 50,000 

Espirito  Santo  . . 

50,000 

(1 Capital  alone 

• • 35.000) 

Minas  Geraes .... 

90,000 

Rio  Grande  do  Sul  . . . 

. . 250,000 

Pari  

Santa  Catharina  . . . 

30,000 

Sao  Paulo 

. . 800,000 

1 Sao  Paulo,  Annuario  Eslatistico,  1912,  i,  p.  100;  ibid.,  Relatorio  da  agrkultura 
de  i<)i2-i 913  (Sao  Paulo,  1914),  p.  178. 

2 Bryce,  p.  407,  was  misinformed  in  holding  that  “ most  ” of  the  88,000  im- 
migrants of  1910  were  Italians;  14,163  were,  of  whom  8998  went  to  Sao  Paulo. 

3 Etnig.  e Col.,  1893,  pp.  109,  127  f.,  133. 

4 C.  M.  Delgado  de  Carvalho,  Le  Br&sil  meridional  (Paris,  1910),  p.  392. 


BRAZIL.  THE  COFFEE  PLANTATIONS 


289 


For  the  whole  country  an  estimate  of  1,500,000  was  made  in  1910. 1 
It  is  an  oft-reiterated  opinion  that  the  Italians  in  Sao  Paulo  are 
fully  one-third  of  the  state’s  population;  and  in  several  of  the 
southern  states  there  are  important  towns  of  20,000-30,000  in- 
habitants, in  which  a majority  are  Italians  and  their  children. 

A common  error  has  been  to  suppose  the  Italian  population  of 
Brazil  to  have  originated  in  the  South  of  Italy.  Actually,  to  an 
altogether  remarkable  degree,  as  anyone  may  discover  who  will 
glance  at  the  Italian  passport  figures,  North  Italians  have  pre- 
dominated. In  the  first  years  of  heavy  migration  to  Brazil  fully 
four-fifths  of  the  emigrants  came  from  the  North.  It  is  true  that 
since  the  collapse  of  their  movement  in  1902,  numerous  South 
Italians  have  settled  in  the  cities  (as  we  have  seen  that  they  did  in 
Argentina),  in  Sao  Paulo,  in  Santos,  Rio,  Bahia.  In  the  Federal 
District  of  Rio  de  Janeiro  they  now  perhaps  even  exceed  the 
North  Italians;2  but  for  no  other  region  of  southern  Brazil  could 
such  a claim  be  sustained.  In  the  state  of  Bahia,  and  apparently 
in  the  North  generally,  they  have  preponderated  over  the  North 
Italians.3  The  tropical  climate,  too  hot  for  the  Venetians,  and 
the  uninviting  agricultural  conditions  of  the  North  have  doubt- 
less made  for  the  result. 

The  North  Italians  arrived  in  families  and  went  directly  to  the 
coffee  plantations.  That  Sao  Paulo  should  have  come  to  produce 
five-sixths  of  the  Brazilian  coffee  crop  and  two-thirds  of  the 

] “ Saggio  di  una  statistica  della  popolazione  italiana  all’  estero,”  Boll.  Emig., 
1912,  No.  1,  pp.  111  f.  Grossi,  like  most  writers,  accepts  the  table  given  without 
reserve;  op.  cit.,  p.  320.  The  figure  for  Sao  Paulo  I have  incorporated  from  an  in- 
formed study  by  S.  Coletti,  “ Lo  stato  di  S.  Paolo  e l’emigrazione  italiana,”  Bull. 
Emig.,  1908,  No.  14,  p.  8.  G.  Pio  di  Savoia  (“  Lo  stato  di  San  Paolo  e l’emigrazione 
italiana,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1905,  No.  3,  pp.  18  f.)  gives  a list  of  26  important  townships 
of  Sao  Paulo  in  which,  from  sundry  data,  Italians  are  argued  to  exceed  Brazilians 
in  number,  and  1 2 in  which  they  are  held  to  be  less.  A municipal  census  of  the  city 
of  Rio  de  Janeiro  which  I have  not  seen  found  25,557  Italians  there  in  1906  (Na- 
poli and  Belli,  p.  1 24) ; it  doubtless  did  not  include  native-born  children.  A recent 
estimate  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  of  Minas  Geraes  holds  the  Italians  there 
to  reach  96,000;  see  M.  Goffreddo,  “ La  pastorizia,  l’agricoltura  e la  nostra  emig- 
razione  nello  stato  di  Minas  Geraes,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1913,  No.  10,  p.  23. 

2 Pio  di  Savoia,  p.  5. 

3 L.  S.  Rocca,  “ Gli  italiani  nello  stato  di  Bahia,”  in  Emig.  e Col.,  1908,  iii‘,  p.  12. 


290 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


world’s  supply  is  a distinction,  it  is  not  excessive  to  say,  which 
these  immigrants  have  largely  made  possible.  Without  them,  the 
prodigious  increase'  in  production  would  scarcely  have  occurred ; 
for  laborers  from  other  countries,  despite  insistent  stimulation  — 
such  as  the  Germans,  Swiss,  and  others  who  in  earlier  days  were 
alone  hoped  for  — had  been  slow  to  come,  had  even,  by  their  own 
governments,  been  dissuaded  from  coming.1  The  immigration  of 
the  Italians  was  in  part,  to  be  sure,  purchased.  Half  a million  of 
those  that  came  after  1889  received  their  passage  fares  from  the 
state  of  Sao  Paulo,  which  in  twenty-four  years  after  1880  spent 
42,000,000  milreis  (over  $14,000,000  United  States  money)  in 
subsidization.2  Not  only  in  Sao  Paulo  but  in  other  states  also,  in 
Minas  Geraes,  in  Rio  de  Janeiro,  and  in  Espirito  Santo,  great 
numbers  of  Italians  have  been  employed  in  coffee  growing. 

How  extensive  the  Italians’  work  has  been  cannot  be  shown 
statistically.  When  Perrod  made  his  careful  report  in  1887,  about 
a third  of  the  Italians,  he  supposed,  were  in  the  fazendas,  and 
there  they  constituted  two-fifths  of  the  workers.3  This  was  before 
the  great  influx.  Subsequent  consular  statements  have  uniformly 
held  the  Italians  to  be  a large  majority  of  the  workers.  In  an 
Italian  publication  of  1906,  they  were  claimed  to  be  four-fifths  of 
the  plantation  hands.4  But  their  primacy  has  been  conceded  by 
other  than  Italian  writers  also.  One  French  student  has  declared 
them  to  be  seven-tenths  of  the  fazenda  workers  of  Sao  Paulo,  the 
rest  being  chiefly  Portuguese  and  Spanish;  5 and  another  believes 
that,  beyond  a doubt,  the  expansion  of  the  coffee  industry  would 
have  been  impossible  without  their  aid.6  Lord  Bryce,  finally, 

1 Franceschini,  pp.  466  f. 

2 II  Brasile  e gli  italiani,  pubblicazione  del  “ Fanfulla  ” (Florence,  1906),  pp.  563  £. 
But  the  state  made  a good  bargain  of  their  coming,  for  it  taxed  the  exports  of  coffee 
up  to  some  eight  times  the  cost  of  subsidization!  Grossi  gives  the  figures;  op.  cit., 
p.  38S. 

3 E.  Perrod,  La  provincia  di  San  Paolo  (Ministero  degli  Affari  Esteri,  Rome, 
1888),  pp.  3,  1 16.  Perrod  was  vice-consul  at  Sao  Paulo. 

4 II  Brasile  e gli  italiani,  p.  419.  5 Laliere,  p.  263. 

6 P.  Walle,  A u Bresil  — de  VUruguay  au  Rio  Sao  Francisco  (Paris,  19-,  p.  175). 

Cf.  also  the  words  of  an  Argentine  visitor,  M.  Bernardez,  Le  Bresil:  sa  vie,  son 
travail,  son  avenir  (Buenos  Aires,  1908),  p.  221 ; and  of  P.  Denis,  Le  Bresil  au  XX" 
siccle  (Paris,  1909),  p.  170. 


BRAZIL.  THE  COFFEE  PLANTATIONS 


291 


wrote,  after  a visit  several  years  ago,  “ the  labor  on  the  great  coffee 
estates  of  Sao  Paulo  is  almost  entirely  Italian.”  1 Such  attribu- 
tions, just  because  they  rest  upon  a diversity  of  evidence  or  are 
reached  from  different  points  of  view,  get  their  force  from  their 
substantial  agreement.  Like  the  cereal  development  of  Argentina, 
this  achievement  of  the  Italians  in  coffee  production  has  the  con- 
venient merit  of  being  at  once  definite,  extensive,  and  of  large 
consequence.  If  half  the  world  finds  comfort  in  its  cup  of  coffee 
on  the  breakfast  table,  then  half  the  world  is  indebted  to  the 
Venetian  toilers  of  Brazil. 

What,  more  particularly,  has  been  the  role  of  the  immigrant 
plantation  workers  ? On  what  terms  have  they  lent  their  labor  ? 

In  the  Rio  de  Janeiro  district,  in  Espirito  Santo,  and  in  the  early 
days  likewise  in  Sao  Paulo,  the  metayer  system  was  the  chief 
mode  of  securing  laborers.  Usually  the  cultivator  received,  for 
his  family’s  labor  during  the  year,  one-half  the  coffee  harvested 
and  a varying  privilege  of  growing  vegetables  for  his  own  use 
between  the  rows  of  coffee  trees.  While  coffee  prices  were  high, 
this  system  resulted  well  for  the  cultivator.  Since  the  crisis,  it 
has  generally  implied  a low  return.  In  Sao  Paulo  it  was  early 
given  up,  because  in  the  good  years  laborers  were  forthcoming 
upon  less  favorable  terms,  and  apparently  because  a different 
contract  better  fitted  the  purposes  of  large-scale  production. 
Today  it  prevails  widely  in  the  fazendas  of  Minas  Geraes.2 

The  empreitada  system  followed  the  share  system  in  Sao  Paulo. 
Though  it  is  still  maintained,  it  has  suffered  a constant  and  great 
decline  since  the  late  nineties.  That  is  because  its  essential  result 
was  to  extend  the  cultivated  area.  For  the  proprietor  who  had 
land  but  little  capital  it  was  a convenient  system,  and  it  was  at- 
tractive to  the  proprietor  who  had  means  as  well,  because  it  was 

1 Op.  cit.,  p.  406. 

2 On  this  contract  and  its  workings,  see  Emig.  e Col.,  1893,  P-  I42>  Pi°  di  Savoia, 
p.  32;  R.  Rizzetto,  “ I.’immigrazione  italiana  nello  Stato  di  Espirito  Santo,”  Boll. 
Emig.,  1903,  No.  7,  pp.  24,  27;  idem,  “ Colonizzazione  italiana  nello  Stato  di 
Espirito  Santo,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1905,  No.  5,  p.  7;  F.  Mazzini,  “ Gl’  interessi  sociali 
ed  economici  italiani  nel  distretto  consolare  di  Rio  de  Janeiro,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1905, 
No.  13,  p.  40;  GoSreddo,  p.  50  (cf.  L.  Provana  del  Sabbione,  “ Viaggi  di  ispezione 
nel  distretto  consolare  di  Bello  Horizonte,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1915,  No.  1,  p.  40). 


292  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

inexpensive.  The  cultivator,  for  his  part,  could  foresee  that  after 
four  years  of  labor  he  would  possess  some  savings.  He  had  to 
clear  the  field,  plant  the  coffee,  uproot  the  weeds  that  sprang  up 
incessantly,  and  in  general  so  care  for  the  trees  that  they  could  be 
turned  over  to  the  proprietor  with  the  first  crop,  more  rarely  the 
second,  ready  to  be  gathered.  The  cultivator  received  the  use  of 
a somewhat  primitive  house,  a limited  right  to  pasture,  the  priv- 
ilege of  growing  corn  and  beans  freely  between  the  rows  of  coffee 
trees  for  two  years,  thereafter  not  more  than  two  rows  of  vege- 
tables between  the  rows  of  trees.  For  every  thousand  coffee 
plants  four  years  old,  he  received  a stipulated  sum,  in  excess  of 
ioo  milreis,  submitting  to  a deduction  for  every  hole  where  new 
plants  had  not  been  substituted  for  those  that  had  failed  to  come 
up.  Those  colonists  who  managed  their  business  well  and  bore 
clear  of  debt  toward  their  landlords  met  success.  They  promoted 
themselves  to  independent  proprietorship  or  they  became  mer- 
chants in  the  cities.  Probably  exceptional  individual  qualities 
played  some  part  in  conducting  this  minority  to  a place  of  com- 
mand and  comfort.1 

Years  before  the  vogue  of  the  empreitada  began  to  decline,  a 
third  form  of  contract  arose  which  today  rules.  Its  common 
name,  the  wages  contract,  scarcely  indicates  its  character.  The 
colonist,  as  the  cultivator  is  named,  receives  the  use  of  a simple 
house,  limited  pasture  rights,  and  an  advance  of  food.  He  agrees 
to  stay  a year  and  takes  charge  usually  of  five  thousand  plants. 
He  keeps  them  free  of  weeds,  sets  in  newT  shrubs  for  those  that  fail 
to  come  up  or  die,  cuts  off  the  dry  or  broken  branches,  and  places 
supports  where  needed.  When  the  berries  are  ripe,  he  cleans  the 
ground  under  the  trees  and  finally  gathers  the  fruit.  He  is  entitled 
to  a cash  wage  for  every  thousand  plants  that  he  cultivates  and 
every  fifty  liters  of  clear  product  that  he  gathers.  At  his  own 
expense  and  for  his  own  profit,  he  may  grow  two  rows  of  corn 
between  the  rows  of  coffee  where  the  plants  are  not  over  two  years 
old  — one  row  where  they  exceed  two  years  — or  he  may  grow 
beans  and  rice.  But  sometimes,  or  until  the  plants  are  very  old, 

1 A good  description  of  this  contract  is  by  A.  Monaco,  “ L’immigrazione 
italiana  nello  Stato  di  San  Paolo  del  Brasile,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1902,  No.  S,  pp.  44  fi. 


BRAZIL.  THE  COFFEE  PLANTATIONS 


293 


he  may  grow  no  vegetables  among  them.  A small  lot  may  be 
wholly  reserved  for  his  use,  yielding  enough  to  feed  his  family. 
Certain  road  and  fence  repair  duties  he  must  perform  without 
specific  pay.  From  his  wages  due  at  the  end  of  the  year  fines  are 
deducted  for  irregularity  of  work,  for  allowing  animals  to  leap 
over  his  hedges,  and  for  various  other  offences.  Unless  the  fazenda 
is  near  the  large  centers,  he  incurs  a heavy  debt  at  the  fazendeiro’s 
store  and  this,  plus  a high  interest  charge,  must  also  be  deducted 
from  his  wages.  A family  normally  constituted,  avoiding  fines, 
incurring  no  unusual  expenses,  as  for  sickness,  has  been  able  to 
save  a fair  sum  per  year.1 

This  contract  is  obviously  elastic.  Some  changes  have  been 
made  in  it  since  it  began  in  the  nineties  almost  wholly  to  displace 
the  empreitada.  And  the  detailed  variations  from  fazenda  to 
fazenda  have  always  been  considerable.  Unlike  the  day  or  sea- 
sonal laborers  taken  on  especially  at  harvest,  whose  wage  rises 
and  falls  with  the  fluctuations  of  the  paper  exchange,  the  year 
colonists  are  paid  at  a fixed  rate  in  paper.  Hence  serious  uncer- 
tainties in  the  amount  of  gold  and  commodities  which  they  can 
command.  In  general,  during  the  nineties  these  amounts  tended 
to  decline  and  in  the  new  century  to  rise.  In  times  of  disturbance 
the  rapid  fluctuations  ran  a long  gamut. 

When  the  coffee  crisis  began,  many  fazendeiros  were  wholly 
unable  to  settle  in  cash  and  instituted  various  species  of  promises 
to  pay,  eventually  often  worthless.  Unpunctuality  of  wage  pay- 
ment became  one  of  the  most  serious  abuses  that  led  to  the  Pri- 
netti  decree  and  to  its  maintenance  in  force.  Likewise,  when  the 
crisis  set  in,  the  fines  deducted  often  became  unreasonable,  and 
those  fazendeiros  who  sold  to  the  colonists  through  their  own 
vendas  charged  more  and  more  exaggerated  prices.  Certainly  the 
fazendeiro  regarded  himself  as  standing  between  the  devil  and  the 
deep  sea.  Bankruptcy  was  inevitable  if  he  allowed  his  colonists 
to  accumulate  large  wage  credits,  or  if  their  debts  were  allowed 
wholly  to  eat  up  their  wages,  for  then  they  would  desert.  True, 
the  fazenda  police,  naturally  almost  the  only  kind  possible  on  these 

1 The  details  of  the  wages  contract  are  set  forth  by  Pio  di  Savoia,  p.  32.  Cf. 
Emig.  e Col.,  1893,  p.  166. 


294 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


large  estates,  would  try  to  bring  back  the  deserters,  and  whip- 
ping also  availed  somewhat  — another  of  the  causes  determin- 
ing the  Prinetti  decree  — but  the  menace  was  none  the  less  great. 
Berries  were  useless  without  harvest  hands;  one  year’s  neglect  of 
a plantation  necessitated  two  years  work  to  restore  its  produc- 
tivity. In  these  anxious  years,  endless  properties,  with  their 
crops,  were  mortgaged.  Desperate  measures,  often  combined 
with  fraud  — both  to  the  colonists  and  to  other  fazendeiros  as 
well  — were  resorted  to  in  the  labor  emergency.  When,  in  1902, 
new  plants  ceased  to  be  set  out,  there  were  already  so  many  young 
ones  in  existence  that  for  some  years  to  come  climbing  harvests 
seemed  inevitable.  Then,  the  price  of  coffee,  sinking  since  the 
late  nineties,  slumped  more,  till  it  touched  the  ruinous  level  that 
had  been  prevalent  for  a short  time  in  the  early  eighties.  And 
finally,  after  an  interval,  came  valorization,  bringing  relief. 

Black  pictures  have  been  drawn  of  the  conditions  of  the  Ital- 
ians in  the  fazendas.  The  early  era  when  it  used  to  be  said  that 
“ the  Italians  are  prospering  and  sending  for  their  friends  ni  has 
only  in  feverish  intervals  since  been  recalled.  Some  of  the  cor- 
respondents of  the  Italian  Geographic  Society,  in  1888,  reported 
great  suffering  and  privation.2  Because  it  was  clear  that  the 
facilities  did  not  exist  for  receiving  and  distributing  so  many 
immigrants,  the  Crispi  decree  of  March,  1889,  put  a ban  upon 
artificial  aids  to  emigration,  including  the  free  passage,  and  main- 
tained it  till  August,  1891.  When  a round  of  consular  reports  was 
asked  for  in  1892,  they  revealed  frequent  skepticism  regarding  the 
situation  of  the  Italians:  debts  were  a burden,  and  the  vaunted 
large  sums  of  money  currently  forwarded  to  Italy  ceased  to  be 
impressive  when  the  size  of  the  Italian  population  was  considered.3 
Although  the  cholera  was  the  main  occasion  for  the  temporary 
suspension  of  emigration  to  Espirito  Santo  in  July,  1895,  a con- 
sular report  from  that  state  had  just  told  of  the  defects  of  the 
transportation  system,  subjection  to  various  indignities,  payment 

1 E.g.,  da  Silva  Prado,  p.  500. 

2 Reale  Soc.  Geog.  Ital.,  passim,  e.g.,  pp.  237,  290. 

3 Emig.  e Col.,  1893,  pp.  167-169. 


BRAZIL.  THE  COFFEE  PLANTATIONS 


295 


in  promises,  police  abuses,  and  similar  matters.  In  a collection  of 
consular  statements  made  in  the  late  nineties,  some  bad  abuses 
were  recounted,  but  most  colonists  were  deemed  to  be  fairly  well 
off.1 

Most  of  all  it  was  the  recital  of  a travelling  inspector,  Adolfo 
Rossi,  made  in  1902,  after  the  great  collapse,  which  stirred  the 
Italian  authorities  to  action.  After  three  months  in  Brazil,  he 
drew  a crowded  picture  of  frauds  and  mishandlings,  of  privation 
and  helplessness.  Somewhat  the  abuses  he  noted  had  been  per- 
petrated by  Italians  themselves,  veritable  exploiters  of  their 
countrymen,  but  most  were  the  work  of  the  fazendeiros  and  their 
overseers.  Though  he  probably  wrote  when  the  situation  was  at 
its  darkest,  it  is  impossible  to  read  his  tales  of  attacks,  for  example, 
on  women  and  girls  and  of  floggings  of  recalcitrant  workmen, 
without  believing  that  something  of  the  old  slave  system  still 
lingered  on  in  the  fazendas.2 

Light  and  shadow  intermingled  and  contrasting  — more  of 
shadow  than  of  light  — appear  in  the  later  glimpses  we  have  of 
Italian  life  on  the  plantations.  The  idyllic  moments  are  there  — 
Professor  Bertarelli  and  Signora  Ferrero  have  painted  them  — 
the  traditional  usages  and  festivals;  the  singing,  shouting,  and 
music  on  Sundays;  the  gay  pleasures  of  the  harvest  days,  recall- 
ing the  unrestrained  jocundity  of  the  vintagers  in  Italy.  But  the 

1 The  questions  put  by  consul-general  Gioia  and  the  answers  to  them  are  brought 
together  by  P.  Ghinassi,  “ Per  le  nostre  colonie,”  L’ltalia  Coloniale,  February,  1901, 
pp.  24-28;  cf.  pp.  30  f. 

2 A.  Rossi,  “ Condizioni  dei  coloni  italiani  nello  stato  di  S.  Paolo  del  Brasile,” 
Boll.  Emig.,  1902,  No.  7,  pp.  3-88.  The  situation  was  sufficiently  complicated. 
Brazil  in  1901  denounced  her  commercial  treaty  with  Italy,  without  so  discriminat- 
ing against  France,  and  roused  much  feeling  in  Italy.  An  inspector  visited  the 
state  of  Minas  Geraes,  but  his  report,  for  whatever  reason,  was  never  published. 
Rossi’s  findings  are  unsystematically  presented.  One  can  wish  that  a commission 
instead  of  a man  had  been  sent,  since  the  task  required  balance  and  perspective, 
such  as  might  come  from  mutual  checks  and  criticism.  The  Rossi  mission  became 
a target  for  Grossi  (pp.  4S9-493),  and  was  bitterly  assailed  by  a Sao  Paulo  Italian, 
F.  Canella,  in  “ Le  condizioni  degli  italiani  nello  Stato  di  San  Paolo,”  L’ltalia  Colo- 
niale, January  (pp.  43-62)  and  February  (pp.  155-181),  1903.  Canella,  whose 
criticism  is  not  without  a personal  tinge,  accuses  Rossi  of  exaggerating,  of  generaliz- 
ing unjustly,  and  of  securing  corroboration  of  his  evidence  from  the  ignorant  or 
prejudiced,  and  other  faults.  But  he  agrees  that  the  suspension  of  subsidized  emi- 
gration was  desirable. 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


296 

more  usual  cast  of  existence,  it  seems,  is  dull,  and  pleasure  shades 
easily  into  pain. 

Work  is  monotonous  and  fatiguing.  After  the  feitor’s  bell  rings 
at  sunrise,  everyone  is  busy  till  sunset.  The  hardest  toil  comes  in 
the  hottest  months,  September  to  March.  Relaxation  is  possible 
only  on  Sundays,  when  the  holiday  garb  and  the  holiday  spirit 
assert  themselves.  Food  is,  fortunately,  sufficient  in  amount  and 
varied  in  kind,  including  vegetables,  milk,  eggs,  fowl,  and  pork.1 

Dwellings  have  had  a stereotyped  form,  the  materials  of  their 
construction  being  bricks,  bamboo,  and  clay;  their  floors  are  usu- 
ally the  earth  itself.  A row  of  such  houses  constitutes  a colony; 
the  scattered  colonies  make  up  the  fazenda.  For  the  families  that 
they  must  contain  the  houses  are  certainly  too  small,  and  their 
hygienic  conditions  are  neglected  by  both  occupant  and  fazen- 
deiro.  Fresh  water  is  often  lacking  and  drainage  deficient. 

That  sickness,  in  these  circumstances,  should  have  been  wide- 
spread is  not  surprising.  Of  trachoma  there  has  been  much  and 
in  some  places  fevers  have  been  persistent.  The  wet,  soggy, 
shaded  soil  of  the  fazendas  is  an  ideal  propagating  medium  for  the 
hookworm,  which  enters  the  bare  feet  of  the  cultivators.2  Medi- 
cal aid  is  absent,  remote  or  costly.  Pointedly  it  has  been  said  (by 
Dr.  Bertarelli)  that  whoever  falls  sick  in  this  country  of  expensive 
doctors  is  in  danger  of  losing  his  money  or  his  fife  — or  both ! 

The  relation  of  worker  and  employer  has  shown  improvement 
since  Rossi’s  day.  Wages  have  still,  from  time  to  time,  been  with- 
held, either  because  the  employer  could  not  pay  or  because  he 
wished  to  retain  the  worker.  Fines  have  still  been  excessive,  for, 
textually,  the  labor  contract  has  always  been  Draconian  and  the 
colonist  has  had  to  rely  on  the  planter’s  spirit  of  fair  play.  But 
such  a spirit  has  by  no  means  generally  been  wanting.  As  a 
magnificent  speculation,  coffee  has  attracted  the  most  diverse 
characters,  some  spendthrift  or  unscrupulous,  others  wise  and 
humane.  Especially  in  that  older  region  about  the  capital  city  of 

1 Franzoni  has  declared  that  the  heavy  exports  of  salt  meat  from  Argentina  have 
gone  mainly  to  Brazil,  where  they  once  nourished  the  slaves  and  later  the  planta- 
tion workers.  Cam.  Ital.  di  Comm.,  Gli  italiani  neW  Argentina,  p.  181. 

2 In  1916  the  Rockefeller  Foundation  added  Brazil  to  the  countries  where,  by 
education  and  treatment,  it  is  seeking  to  stamp  out  the  disease. 


BRAZIL.  THE  COFFEE  PLANTATIONS 


297 


Sao  Paulo,  where  the  estates  have  been  somewhat  broken  up  by 
inheritance  and  the  cultivator  has  not  been  dependent  on  the 
planter’s  store,  good  management  has  been  common;  but  in  the 
distant  centers  the  ruling  circumstances  have  been  less  propitious 
and  the  state’s  oversight  difficult. 

An  important  enactment  of  1907  gave  to  the  colonists  a first 
lien  upon  the  crop,  so  effectually  bettering  a situation  which  a 
pseudo-benevolent  law  of  1904  had  not  improved,  a law  which 
virtually  confirmed  the  old  practice  of  allowing  mortgage  claims 
on  the  crop  to  be  satisfied  first.1  In  19x1,  the  state  of  Sao  Paulo 
established  an  Agricultural  Protective  Bureau  for  the  execution 
of  the  federal  and  state  laws,  so  far  as  they  involve  the  rights  and 
interests  of  the  agricultural  workers.  This  likewise  was  an  im- 
portant step  forward,  but  its  results  will  probably  come  slowly.2 

By  the  ordinary  tests  of  civilized  countries,  the  level  of  wages 
has  surely  been  low.  Though  it  rose  during  much  of  the  present 
century  its  improved  basis  left  much  to  be  desired,  and  just  before 
the  outbreak  of  the  European  war,  and  in  the  crisis  that  next 
ensued,  it  sank  again.  On  the  one  hand,  and  commonly,  there 
has  for  years  past  been  the  spectacle  of  the  destitute  Italian  un- 
able to  call  a penny  his  own,  or  of  the  Italian  who  has  spent  the 
profit  of  an  exceptional  year  in  returning  to  Italy  — in  poverty, 
discouraged,  exhausted  or  sick.  On  the  other  hand,  but  more 
rarely,  and  to  be  discovered  chiefly  in  the  older  regions  about  the 
capital,  there  has  been  the  nimble  accumulator  of  savings  who  has 
bought  a plot  of  land  and  become  an  independent  cultivator. 

Of  57,000  landed  estates,  which  the  Secretary  of  Agriculture  of 
Sao  Paulo  counted  in  1907,  over  nine  per  cent  belonged  to  Ital- 

1 On  this  episode,  see  Boll.  Emig.,  1904,  No.  2,  p.  44  (gives  the  text  of  the 
earlier  law);  Boll.  Emig.,  1904,  No.  ix,  p.  31;  Pio  di  Savoia,  p.  53;  Boll.  Emig., 
1909,  No.  9,  pp.  77  f.  There  is  some  indication  that  the  law  of  1907  has  accom- 
plished less  than  was  expected.  See  a criticism  by  Napoli  and  Belli,  op.  cit.,  p.  24. 

2 Guzzini,  in  Emigrazione  agricola  al  Brasile,  Relazione  della  Commissione  Ilali- 
ana,  1912  (2d  ed.,  Bologna,  1913),  pp.  235-244;  Sao  Paulo,  Relatorio  da  Agricultara 
de  1912-1913,  pp.  198-208;  A.  Tuozzi,  “ La  tutela  giuridica  del  colono  nello  stato 
di  San  Paolo,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1913,  No.  10,  pp.  57-70.  The  obstacles  to  assistance 
are  many,  as  Tuozzi  points  out:  the  colonist  has  no  means  at  hand  to  insure  pay- 
ment of  his  wage,  his  liberty  in  changing  fazendas  is  restricted,  he  must  get  permis- 
sion to  do  most  things,  has  little  indication  of  the  terminus  and  mode  of  his  work, 
must  live  in  the  fazenda,  whither  no  one  may  come  save  by  his  master’s  permission. 


298 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


ians; 1 and  in  some  coffee  regions,  as  at  Ribeiraozinho,  there  have 
been  more  Italian  owners  than  Brazilian.  Many  Italian  proper- 
ties have  been  worth  1 00-150  contos  ($32,000-850,000,  United 
States  money),  some  even  much  more.  Although  the  owners  have 
sometimes  acquired  their  purchase  money  in  other  places  or  in 
other  industries,  yet  generally,  it  would  seem,  they  have  done  so 
by  dint  of  hard  struggling,  incessant  toil,  privation,  and  the  most 
scrupulous  saving.2 

Even,  however,  when  the  most  cheerful  aspects  are  emphasized, 
when,  for  instance,  it  is  shown  that  men  have  saved  money,  one 
evil  of  broad  dimensions  remains:  the  isolation  in  which  the  en- 
tire fazenda  working  force  lives,  its  incredibly  low  civic  level. 
Touch  with  the  outside  world  is  rare.  It  is  not  an  infrequent 
thing  for  the  children  of  a “ successful  ’’  immigrant  to  grow  up 
without  any  elementary  schooling;  that  the  parents  are  not  un- 
happy in  the  situation  rather  heightens  the  force  of  the  criticism. 
Over  all  is  the  baleful  influence  of  a patriarchal  organization  of 
industry,  which,  however  necessary  it  might  have  been  in  a society 
resting  upon  a slave  basis,  ill  comports  with  the  ideal  of  free  labor.3 

1 The  figures  are  reproduced  by  A.  Piccarolo,  Una  rivoluzione  economica  (Ales- 
sandria, 1908),  pp.  nf.  See  also  Bernirdez,  p.  222;  J.  N.  Solorzano  y Costa,  El 
estado  de  S.  Paulo  (Sao  Paulo,  1913),  p.  18.  What  proportion  of  the  whole  acreage 
the  Italians  held  is  not  known;  it  was  certainly  less  than  nine  per  cent. 

2 A.  Cusano,  Italia  d’oltrc  mare  (Milan,  1911),  pp.  109-113.  In  a propagandist 
booklet,  L’etat  de  Sao  Paulo,  renseignements  utiles  (Sao  Paulo,  1911),  pp.  58-68,  are 
given  the  names  of  some  150-175  Italian  immigrants  who  have  accumulated  riches, 
together  with  their  residence,  the  date  of  their  arrival  (usually  about  twenty  years 
previous),  the  extent  of  their  lands,  number  of  coffee  plants  and  their  annual  profit 
from  cultivation.  Cf.  also  II  Brasile  e gli  Ilaliani,  p.  842,  where  the  plantations  of 
the  Italians  are  claimed  to  be  worth  28,000,000  lire,  and  to  contain  14,000,000 
coffee  plants. 

3 On  Italian  life  in  the  fazendas,  see,  e.g.,  E.  Bonardelli,  Lo  stato  di  S.  Paolo  del 
Brasile  e Vemigrazione  italiana  (Turin,  1916),  esp.  chs.  iv  and  vi;  Cusano,  pp.  85- 
87;  E.  Bertarelli,  II  Brasile  meridionale  (Rome,  1914),  esp.  pp.  64-82;  Lombroso- 
Ferrero,  pp.  38-61;  U.  Tedeschi,  “ Le  condizioni  sanitarie  degli  emigranti  italiani 
nello  stato  di  San  Paolo,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1907,  No.  2,  pp.  3-58;  L.  Mazzotti,  “ Una 
grave  malattia  che  colpiscc  al  Brasile  gli  emigrati  italiani  lavoranti  nella  coltiva- 
zione  del  caffe,”  Rivista  della  Benejieenza  Pubblica,  1902,  pp.  469-476;  Dr.  Mazzuc- 
coui,  “ Le  condizioni  degli  italiani  nello  stato  de  S.  Paulo,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1905, 
No.  8,  pp.  45-48;  Monaco,  pp.  35-55;  a report  by  Pio  di  Savoia  to  the  Consiglio 
dell’  Emigrazione,  Boll.  Emig.,  1908,  No.  1,  pp.  33-41;  and  cited  writings  by  Pio  di 
Savoia  and  S.  Coletti. 


CHAPTER  XVI 


BRAZIL.  II.  PIONEER  FARMING.  GENERAL  ASPECTS 
OF  ITALIAN  LIFE 

When  the  best  has  been  said,  the  experience  of  the  immigrants  on 
the  fazendas  has  been  one  of  broken  hopes  and  vanished  dreams. 
A great  work  in  production  has  been  wrought,  some  planters  — 
by  no  means  all  — have  been  enriched,  but  a narrow  and  stunted 
life,  hedged  about  with  worry,  has  been  the  reward  of  the  mass  of 
the  cultivators. 

If  for  some  time  and  in  good  earnest  the  planters  refrained  from 
setting  out  further  trees,  then,  simply  enough,  a measure  of  cor- 
rection would  come  from  the  increase  of  the  world’s  demand  for 
coffee.  And  if  the  agricultural  production  of  Sao  Paulo  were 
more  diversified,  a steadier  utilization  of  the  labor  force  might  be 
made;  for  the  possibilities  of  the  rich  soil  of  this  state  are  far  from 
exhausted.  But  it  is  not  even  clear  that  the  most  economical 
method  of  raising  coffee  is  now  pursued.  Technical  advances 
notwithstanding,  the  somewhat  feudal  organization  of  the  fa- 
zendas is  a remainder  of  slave  days.  The  operations  chiefly  re- 
quiring capital  and  a large  scale  of  operations  occur  in  the  final 
stages.  Because  harvest  labor  is  precious,  more  families  are  often 
taken  into  the  plantation  than  can  be  fully  occupied  during  much 
of  the  year.  It  may  be  that  the  problem  of  the  planter  is  partly 
the  immigrant’s  problem  also.  The  former  constantly  fears  that 
the  latter  will  desert  him  before  the  harvest  is  gathered;  the  immi- 
grant, when  dissatisfied,  is  tempted  to  seek  a better  connection 
elsewhere.  Could  not  a harvest  reserve  of  labor  be  assured  to  the 
planter  if  immigrants  were  established,  at  no  great  distance,  on 
small  properties  of  their  own,  which  they  might  work  with  all  the 
interest  that  ownership  inspires  and  that  a traditional  worship  of 
the  magic  of  property  has  especially  instilled  in  the  Italians  ? 
Though  such  a solution  would  not  touch  the  heart  of  the  problem, 

299 


300 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


it  might  accomplish  much.  But  let  us  leave  the  question  momen- 
tarily unanswered  and  consider  a theme  not  unrelated,  yet  also  of 
broad  independent  interest. 

Had  coffee  not  spelt  gold  for  Brazil,  the  likelihood  is  that  there, 
as  in  Argentina,  modern  immigration  would  have  taken  the  form 
of  colonial  settlement.  In  the  first  two-thirds  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  many  colonies,  we  have  seen,  were  started  and  many 
sank  into  oblivion.  Even,  however,  after  the  virtues  of  the 
volcanic  soil  of  Sao  Paulo  had  begun  to  be  prized,  and  after  the 
fazendas  had  contrived  to  engorge  the  great  mass  of  the  immi- 
grants, the  founding  of  colonies  went  forward,  with  some  striking 
results. 

The  state  of  Sao  Paulo  itself  has  had  a colonization  policy, 
inviting  immigrants  to  make  their  homes  in  given  centers,  called 
usually  nuclei.  Paying  their  way  from  the  port  of  debarkation  to 
the  Eospedaria,  it  has  lodged  and  fed  them  until  their  “ conces- 
sion ” could  be  chosen  — perhaps  a week  or  more  — then  has 
transported  them  gratis  to  the  colony.1  There  “ urban  ” and 
“ suburban  ” and  “ rural  ” lots  have  been  marked  off.  Rural  lots, 
commonly  of  twenty-five  hectares,  would  ordinarily  be  sold  only 
to  heads  of  families.  They  paid  from  four  to  sixteen  milreis  (per- 
haps $1.50-15.00)  per  hectare,  while  purchasers  of  urban  lots 
paid  five  to  ten  times  as  much.  Although  a deduction  of  6 per 
cent  was  made  for  settlement  in  cash,  most  colonists  preferred  to 
pay  in  five  annual  instalments.  After  five  years  an  addition, 
usually  20  per  cent,  was  made  to  the  unpaid  amount.  If  food, 
seeds,  roots,  and  implements  were  advanced,  the  charge  therefor 
became  part  of  the  “ colonial  debt.”  Service  in  making  roads, 
which  was  compensated  for,  could  be  required  of  the  colonist.2 

Such  is  the  form  which  the  colonial  policy  of  Sao  Paulo  has 
taken,  and  I give  it  in  some  detail  because  it  accords  closely  with 
that  of  the  other  southern  states.  In  themselves  the  Sao  Paulo 

1 Under  the  existing  law,  whenever  a family  of  three  persons  aged  twelve  or 
more  is  in  question,  the  state  also  pays  for  the  transportation  from  the  foreign  port 
to  Santos. 

2 Emig.  e Col.,  1893,  pp.  161  f. 


BRAZIL.  PIONEER  FARMING 


301 


colonies  are  not  in  the  forefront  of  their  kind.  That  is  largely 
because  the  fazendeiros  have  never  heartily  supported  the  small 
properties  movement.  The  pivot  of  their  interest  has  been  too 
firmly  centered  elsewhere,  and  they  doubtless  wished  to  assure  the 
valuable  Italian  labor  supply  to  themselves.  Few  Italians  have 
been  in  the  nuclei.  In  five  colonies  “ emancipated  ” (dropped 
from  special  guardianship)  at  one  time,  a few  years  ago,  they  were 
only  50  of  5000  inhabitants.  But  at  Campos  Selles,  by  way  of 
contrast,  founded  in  1897,  they  held  in  early  days  one-fifth  of  the 
lots;  and  in  1912  numbered  (apart  from  their  native  children) 
327  persons,  being  a third  of  the  population.  At  Nova  Venecia, 
in  1912,  they  were  261,  or  over  half  the  population.  But  these 
were  their  major  centers.  In  all  the  unemancipated  colonies  of 
Sao  Paulo,  the  foreign-born  Italians  have  not,  at  any  moment, 
exceeded  some  1200-1500,  or  10-15  Per  cent  °f  the  inhabitants.1 

Of  colonization  in  Espirito  Santo  the  tale  may  be  briefly  told. 
Its  pith  is  that,  out  of  misfortune  and  out  of  the  colonists’  mal- 
adaptation  to  their  circumstances,  an  unhappy  result  has  come. 
Beginning  to  arrive  about  1875,  the  Italians  rapidly  increased, 
especially  in  the  period  before  suspension,  and  if  a consular  esti- 
mate may  be  credited,  there  were  presently  some  5000  pro- 
prietors among  them.  Through  the  slump  in  the  price  of  their 
main  crop,  an  inferior  grade  of  coffee,  many  lost  control  of  their 
lands;  but  these  were  so  disadvantageously  distant  from  the  mar- 
kets that  substantial  profits  were  never  likely.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  colonists  have  been  content  with  a primitive  agricul- 
tural equipment  (derived,  it  is  said,  from  the  Indians  by  way  of 
the  Portuguese!),  and  have  used  no  plows.  They  have  lacked  an 
understanding  of  what  their  land  could  do  and  of  what  they  ought 
to  do,  and  have  pursued  their  way  empirically.  Although  they 
and  their  children  have  now  attained  a population  of  about 
50,000,  there  has  been  little  association  among  them  for  the  ad- 

1 How  many  have  lived  in  all  the  agricultural  settlements  (apart  from  coffee 
plantations)  cannot  be  indicated.  If  such  miscellaneous  groups  as  the  workers  on 
the  sugar  plantations  of  Piracicaba  are  reckoned  in,  the  total  is  not  inconsiderable. 

Current  statistics  of  the  nucleus  may  be  found  in  the  Annuario  estatistico  de  Sao 
Paulo.  See  also  Pio  di  Savoia,  “ Lo  stato  di  San  Paolo,”  etc.,  pp.  78,  86-96;  Denis, 
ch.  viii;  Delgado  de  Carvalho,  p.  213. 


302 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


vance  of  their  common  interests.  German  immigrants  to  Espirito 
Santo,  because  they  antedated  the  Italians  by  thirty  years,  and 
because  they  have  practised  a more  varied  culture,  have  been 
much  more  prosperous  than  the  Italians.1 

A distinctly  happier  lot  has  been  that  of  the  20,000-30,000 
Italians  in  Parana,  survivors  and  successors  of  immigrants  who 
came  during  some  fifteen  years  before  the  early  nineties.  The 
main  influx  ended  abruptly,  and  the  state  government,  through 
indifference  or  poverty,  probably  both,  ceased  to  provide  for 
further  settlements.2  Physically,  despite  a humid  coast  and  a 
still  unexplored  West,  which  is  covered  with  impenetrable  forests, 
the  state  has  offered  advantages  to  settlers.  A plateau  zone 
parallel  to  the  seaboard  is  well  suited  to  human  habitation.  The 
soil  is  good  for  cultivation  — or  rather,  men  have  learned  to  sup- 
ply its  deficiency  in  phosphates  by  burning  the  plentiful  timber 
over  it. 

Some  Italians  are  at  the  port  Parangua,  but  most  are  still  at 
Morretes,  one  of  the  first  settlements,  where  they  have  estab- 
lished themselves  in  the  cultivation  of  sugar  cane  and  in  diver- 
sified agriculture.  From  the  somewhat  debilitating  climate  of 
Morretes,  fifteen  families  early  sought  relief  by  founding  Santa 
Felicidade,  in  the  fertile  plateau  country,  where  now  2500  persons 
live.  Neither  language  nor  dress  suggests  that  this  town  has  not 
been  picked  up  out  of  Venetia  and  dropped  into  Brazil. 

Many  settlements  have  had  their  origin  in  the  withdrawal  of 
colonists  from  one  or  another  well-filled  center.  So  in  1896 
thirty  families  of  young  persons  left  Santa  Felicidade,  without 
means,  and  started  Bella  Vista.  In  seven  years  all  had  paid  for 
their  lots  with  the  products  of  the  soil  — - corn  and  wheat,  grapes 
and  wine.  Vegetables  and  tobacco  they  have  raised  for  their  own 

1 R.  Rizzetto,  “ L’immigrazione  italiana  nello  Stato  di  Espirito  Santo,”  pp.  20- 
32;  idem,  “ Colonizzazione  italiana  nello  Stato  di  Espirito  Santo,”  Boll.  Emig., 
1905,  No.  7,  pp.  3-152  (pp.  rr9-isi  give  the  histories  of  individual  immigrants); 
G.  B.  Beverini,  “ Lo  Stato  di  Espirito  Santo,”  in  Emig.  e Col.,  190S,  iii1,  pp.  390- 
405;  L.  Petrocchi,  “ Le  colonie  italiane  nello  Stato  di  Espirito  Santo,”  Boll.  Emig., 
1915,  No.  1,  pp.  45-56. 

2 For  the  text  of  the  settlement  law  of  1892,  see  “ Legge  sulla  colonizzazione 
dello  Stato  del  Parana,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1904,  No.  18,  pp.  26-31. 


BRAZIL.  PIONEER  FARMING 


303 


uses,  corn  for  polenta  and  forage ; and  they  have  acquired  ample 
stocks  of  cattle,  swine,  horses,  and  poultry.1  The  state  leads  all 
others  in  the  production  of  herva  mate  or  Paraguay  tea  (the 
powdered  leaves  of  a small  tree),  which  is  the  South  American 
substitute  for  the  beverage  of  the  East.  At  Santa  Felicidade  and 
elsewhere  much  of  it  is  produced  for  export;  and  at  Curityba,  the 
capital,  the  son  of  an  Italian  has  established  the  largest  concern 
for  preparing  the  leaves. 

Although  some  colonists,  to  their  considerable  disadvantage, 
have  established  themselves  too  far  away  from  the  markets,  those 
in  the  settlements  named,  or  at  such  places  as  Pilarzinho,  Agua 
Verde,  and  Umbara,  have  done  well,  and  many  have  estates  worth 
$io,ooo-$30,ooo  (United  States  money).  The  chief  city  colony 
is  Curityba,  containing,  among  others,  some  4000-6000  Italians; 
it  is  separated  from  Sao  Paulo  city  by  a rail  journey  of  about 
thirty  hours.2 

In  Santa  Catharina,  as  early  as  1836,  Genoese  families  estab- 
lished the  colony  of  Nova  Italia.  But  the  great  immigration  came 
only  after  government  agents  in  Venetia  had  tried  to  procure 
settlers  of  a Latin  strain  to  counterweigh  the  Teutonic.  In  all 
Brazil,  as  it  happens,  Santa  Catharina  has  been  the  region  of 
German  predilection  and  is  today  the  seat  of  a German  population 
of  perhaps  120,000.  Without  counterbalancing  them,  the  Italians 
have  come  to  be  an  important  collectivity  of  30,000-42,000. 

1 The  histories  of  all  these  families  have  been  recorded.  See  G.  Silva,  “ Lo  stato 
del  Parana  e l’immigrazione  italiana,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1903,  No.  7,  pp.  37  fL;  G.  Sa- 
betta,  “ La  colonizzazione  e l’immigrazione  italiana  nel  Parana,”  Boll.  Emig., 
1903,  No.  10,  pp.  17  f. 

2 For  some  light  — not  much  — upon  early  days,  see  N.  Marcone,  Gli  italiani 
al  Brasile  (Rome,  1877),  ch.  iv.  A particularly  useful  study  is  R.  Venerosi  Pescio- 
lini,  Le  colonie  italiane  nel  Brasile  mcridionale  (Turin,  1914),  pp.  201-228.  See  also 
Cusano,  pp.  177-213;  Denis,  ch.  x;  the  reports  in  the  volume  Etnigrazione  agricola 
al  Brasile  (Commissione  Italiana,  1912);  Silva,  pp.  33-40;  Sabetta,  pp.  3-18;  B. 
Salemi-Pace,  “ Le  imprese  di  colonizzazione  nel  Sud  del  Brasile  e specialmente 
nello  Stato  di  Parana,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1905,  No.  4,  pp.  3-61;  T.  Castiglia,  “ Lo  Stato 
del  Parand,”  Emig.  e Col.,  1908,  iii‘,  pp.  167-211;  N.  Fortunati,  “ Condizioni 
materiali  e morali  degli  italiani  nello  stato  del  Parand,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1913,  No.  10, 
pp.  71-73;  C.  Umilta,  “II  Parand  e 1’emigrazione  italiana,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1913, 
No.  14,  pp.  51-54. 


304 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


The  state  is  more  fortunately  provided  with  a sea  front  than  its 
southern  neighbor,  Parana,  but  its  soil,  generally  speaking,  is  less 
fertile.  The  colonists  have  settled  between  the  hot,  humid, 
fever-infested  coast,  and  the  upper  plateau,  which  is  inhabited  by 
a grazing  population  of  Brazilians.  In  the  more  southern  colonies, 
where  Germans  have  been  few,  the  Italians  were  pioneers.  What 
hardships  they  suffered  in  early  days  they  still  delight  to  tell; 
and  of  their  encounters  with  the  Indians,  the  cemeteries  of  Urus- 
sanga  and  Nova  Venecia  preserve  an  eternal  record. 

Azambuja,  earliest  of  the  southern  colonies,  was  established  on 
good  land  and  prospered;  it  now  contains  4000  inhabitants. 
Farther  along  the  railway  is  Urussanga,  Venetian  in  aspect, 
founded  in  1878  by  the  imperial  government,  and  in  1901  made  a 
municipality.  Its  r 2,000  inhabitants  are  still  mainly  agricul- 
turists who  live  away  from  the  center.  They  may  be  said  to  have 
done  well,  for  their  farms  are  worth  from  four  to  fifteen  times  their 
value  of  twenty  years  ago.  Bountiful  corn  harvests  serve  to 
fatten  hogs,  and  so  to  sustain  a flourishing  lard  industry.  Grapes 
are  abundantly  grown,  but  only  a poor  wine  is  made.  Because  of 
mediocre  soil  conditions,  and  the  want  of  roads,  Cresciuma,  like 
Nova  Venecia  (the  only  colony  established  in  Santa  Catharina  by 
the  Companhia  Metropolitana ),  has  done  less  well  than  Urussanga. 
At  Nova  Venecia  some  settlers  have  not  improved  their  station  in 
twenty  years.  Many  Italians  are  at  Orleans  do  Sul,  but  only  a 
few  at  Laguna,  the  home  of  the  immortalized  Anita  Garibaldi. 
In  all  these  southern  colonies  life  has  the  placidity  of  isolation. 
Italian  is  the  customary  language,  and  only  the  merchants  need 
know  Portuguese. 

The  Italians  of  the  northern  colonies  are  but  half  as  numerous 
as  those  of  the  southern  — unless  some  10,000  Trentines  be  reck- 
oned with  them.  At  Nova  Trento  are  4000  Trentines  and  1500 
Italians.  They  have  not  thriven,  because  their  lands  are  unsatis- 
factory, and  silkworm  raising  and  the  making  of  silk  have  but 
little  improved  their  position.  Four  thousand  Venetians  and 
Lombards  dwell  at  Brusque,  primarily  a German  settlement;  but 
their  success,  too,  has  been  very  moderate.  Blumenau,  estab- 
lished in  1850,  is  the  chief  German  center,  a thriving  business  and 


BRAZIL.  PIONEER  FARMING 


305 


agricultural  community,  where  even  the  signs  in  the  streets  are 
German,  and  Italians  are  few.  Rodeio,  half  Italian  and  half 
Trentine,  is  in  a fertile  valley,  whose  products  are  rice,  corn, 
tobacco,  wine,  butter,  and  lard;  it  has  three  cooperative  associa- 
tions for  the  sale  of  its  products.1  Rio  dos  Cedros  is  similarly 
mingled  as  to  population.  In  the  valley  of  Pomeranos  the  Italians 
have  taken  the  Germans  for  models  in  many  things  — in  their 
style,  for  example,  of  house  building  and  in  the  emphasis  they 
have  put  upon  dairying.  The  colony  at  Itajahy,  of  3500  Italians, 
would  contain  more  had  not  many  in  past  years  migrated  to 
Argentina,  to  improve  their  fortunes. 

All  in  all,  the  mass  of  the  Italians  in  Santa  Catharina  have 
become  firmly,  if  modestly,  established  in  farming  communities, 
and  generally  have  risen  to  proprietorship.  They  have  continued 
to  live  apart  from  the  Germans  and  have  not  intermarried  with 
them.2 

When  Italians  speak  with  pride  of  their  South  Brazilian  col- 
onies they  usually  have  foremost  in  mind  neither  Santa  Catha- 
rina nor  Parana,  but  Rio  Grande  do  Sul,  southernmost  of  all  the 

] Venerosi  Pesciolini,  p.  184,  writes:  “ Nearly  all  the  colonies  of  Italians  in  these 
valleys  are  in  much  better  economic  circumstances  than  those  in  other  parts  of  the 
state;  the  colonial  lots  command  higher  values.”  Only  a little  earlier  a German 
traveller  who  had  ridden  into  the  same  district  (Rodeio)  drew  this  picture:  “Very 
striking  in  these  Italian  settlements  are  the  numerous  chapels,  churches,  and  crosses 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  neglected  fields,  or  rather  pastures,  on  the  other.  . . . 
Certainly,  where  different  colonists,  for  example  Germans,  settle  near  the  Italians, 
there  is  promptly  a change  of  scene.”  He  adds  that  the  men  from  Pomerania  have 
done  better,  yet  concludes  that  the  Italians  are  assiduous,  industrious,  frugal,  and 
could  in  some  things  be  models  to  the  Germans.  W.  Vallentin,  In  Brasilien  (2d  ed., 
Berlin,  1009),  pp.  167  f. 

2 The  best  account  is  Venerosi  Pesciolini,  pp.  115-201.  See  also  Cusano,  pp. 
217-236;  Emigrazione  agricola.  al  Brasile  (Commissione  Italiana,  1912),  passim', 
G.  Pio  di  Savoia,  “ Lo  stato  di  Santa  Catharina  e l’emigrazione  italiana,”  Boll. 
Emig.,  1902,  No.  6,  pp.  29-64;  G.  C.  MacDonald,  “ Lo  stato  di  Santa  Caterina 
e la  colonizzazione  italiana,”  Emig.  e Col.,  1908,  iii',  pp.  213-270;  L.  Petrocchi, 
“ Le  colonie  italiane  nel  nord  dello  Stato  di  Santa  Catharina,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1914, 
No.  6,  pp.  49-55;  G.  Zanluca,  “ Colonia  italiana  nella  comarca  di  Blumenau,” 
Italica  Gens  ( Bolleltino ),  December,  1912,  pp.  374-383;  F.  Franzoia,  “ Condizioni 
intellettuali  della  colonia  italiana  nel  sud  dello  Stato  di  Santa  Catharina,”  Boll. 
Emig.,  1914,  No.  13,  pp.  41-47- 


306  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

states  below  the  coffee  belt.  There  the  survivors  and  descendants 
of  the  immigrants  who  came  in  the  boom  years  number  about 

100.000. 

With  a temperature  rarely  rising  above  96°  Fahr.  nor  falling 
below  the  freezing  point,  the  climate  of  Rio  Grande  partly  re- 
sembles that  of  South  Italy;  only  — for  a difference  — rains  are 
ample.  The  soil  is  moderately  fertile.  In  the  North,  grazing,  still 
the  chief  industry  of  the  state,  has  somewhat  fallen  back  before 
agriculture;  and  there  it  is  that  the  Italians  have  mainly  settled. 

The  first  who  came  knew  only,  it  is  said,  that  they  were  going 
to  Brazil  and  did  not  guess  that  they  were  to  be  frontiersmen  in 
Rio  Grande.  They  were  quickly  abandoned  by  the  agents  who 
introduced  them  and  for  a year  or  more  had  bitter  struggles  with 
Nature  which  their  survivors  still  recount  with  emotion.  They 
were  reduced  in  these  days  to  eating  the  fruit  of  the  umbrella 
pine. 

Dona  Isabel  and  Conde  d’Eu,  their  first  colonies,  were  both 
founded  in  1875,  but  patriotically  renamed,  when  the  empire  fell, 
Bento  Gongalves  and  Garibaldi,  after  the  hero  of  the  Rio  Gran- 
dean  revolution  and  his  illustrious  Italian  companion-in-arms. 
Of  the  settlers  in  Bento  Gonsalves  a few  bought  their  lots  outright 
from  the  state.  The  rest  engaged  to  pay  in  five  annual  instal- 
ments, and  many  received  advances  besides.  When  troubles 
ensued,  the  government  afterward  cancelled  a part  of  the  debt. 
In  years  more  recent,  when  Italian  heads  of  families  came  to 
Bento  Gongalves,  they  were  employed  to  build  roads  under  a use- 
ful arrangement  whereby  four-fifths  of  their  wage  was  credited 
toward  their  purchase  of  land.  Italians  now  number,  it  is  claimed, 
22,000  in  a population  of  25,000,  many  of  them  established  on 
lands  of  great  natural  fertility.  It  is  usual  to  harvest  two  crops  of 
corn  per  year.  The  growth  of  Garibaldi,  though  somewhat  less 
than  that  of  Bento  Gonsalves,  has  been  noteworthy  and  several 
years  ago  it  was  estimated  to  contain  some  15,000  Italians. 

To  the  northeast  lies  Caxias,  “ the  pearl  of  the  colonies.” 
Founded  in  1876,  it  is  estimated  now'  to  have  a population  of 

40.000,  of  whom  nine-tenths  are  Italians.  The  city  proper  presents 
all  the  appearance  of  being  the  center  of  a flourishing  neighbor- 


BRAZIL.  PIONEER  FARMING 


307 


hood,  and  boasts  electric  light  derived  from  water  power.  It  is 
strikingly  Italian,  has  a Piazza  Dante,  but,  as  usually  happens 
when  a town  is  reached  by  the  railroad  and  visited  by  business 
folk,  the  signs  in  the  streets  have  become  Portuguese.  The  Ital- 
ian mercantile  houses  are  generally  connected  with  German  con- 
cerns in  Porto  Alegre.  More  wine  is  made  (by  Venetians  and 
Mantuans)  in  the  country  about  Caxias  than  in  any  other  part  of 
the  state:  and  the  whole  state’s  output,  second  to  corn  in  impor- 
tance, and  greater  than  the  output  of  any  other  state  in  Brazil 
(Santa  Catharina  and  Parana  following),  is  mainly  the  work  of 
Italians.  But  the  reputation  which  this  wine  once  enjoyed  in  the 
trade  of  Brazil  as  vinho  nacional  has  since  been  lost  through  defec- 
tive methods  of  preparing  for  the  market.  In  the  country  about 
Caxias  are  the  more  modest  centers  of  Nova  Trento  (with  5000 
Venetians  and  Trentines),  Nova  Padua,  Nova  Milao,  Nova 
Vicenza  and,  further  away,  Nova  Treviso  and  Nova  Roma. 
Though  most  colonists  have  paid  their  colonial  debt,  primitive 
methods  of  cultivation  and  (it  is  claimed)  a lack  of  lime  in  the  soil 
have  blunted  their  efforts.  Hence  Caxias  and  its  satellite  colonies 
have  ceased  to  grow.  When  children  marry,  they  move  away  and 
found  other  centers,  and  sometimes  the  older  colonists  do  likewise. 

Not  only  corn  and  grapes,  but  vegetables,  tobacco,  and  some 
sugar  are  raised.  Wheat,  long  produced  in  abundance,  rose 
astonishingly  in  importance  when  railroad  construction  was  ex- 
tended, the  output  of  1912  mounting  to  five  times  that  of  1908. 
Italians  have  introduced  the  olive  — with  what  success  is  not  yet 
wholly  clear.  The  crops  of  one  colony  are  generally  the  crops  of 
all. 

Other  Northern  colonies  are  Monte  Veneto  with  its  sons  of 
Belluno,  Udine,  and  Treviso;  Nova  Bassano;  Encantado  which, 
founded  in  1878,  has  now  4000  settlers,  mostly  Italian;  Guapore 
(1892),  containing  now  25,000  inhabitants,  nearly  all  Italian; 
Alfredo  Chaves  (1885)  and  Antonio  Prado  (1886).  All  of  these 
have  flourished.  Here  also  is  Sao  Leopoldo,  the  old  German 
settlement,  which  somewhat  dims  the  glory  of  the  Italian  colonies. 
Santa  Thereza  has  many  Polish  settlers,  but  they  are  outnum- 
bered by  the  Italians,  whose  language  they  now  speak!  In  the 


3°8 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


extreme  southwest  of  Rio  Grande  is  Uruguayana,  where  2000 
Italians,  largely  engaged  in  grape  growing,  are  the  chief  foreign 
group.1  In  the  south-central  portion  are  Silveira  Martins  and 
Jaguary  (1889).  Rio  Grande  city  contains  2500  Italians,  Porto 
Alegre  10,000.  At  the  last-named  city  and  port,  the  Germans, 
however,  are  twice  as  numerous  as  the  Italians,  and  much  more 
prosperous  and  powerful. 

Such  are  the  principal  colonies  of  Rio  Grande.  One  cannot 
read  the  reports  of  men  who  have  watched  them  from  near  at  hand 
without  being  impressed  by  their  reiterated  criticism  of  the  colo- 
nists’ methods  of  cultivation.  The  immigrants  brought  with  them 
the  semi-antiquated,  ill-adapted  ways  of  Venetia,  which  they  have 
changed  since,  but  only  at  random  and  unscientifically.  “ What 
this  region  most  needs,”  wrote  an  Italian  consul,  “ is  some  one 
who  can  guide  and  counsel  these  people  of  ours.  They  came  from 
Italy  with  great  hopes  and  the  will  to  work,  but  have  not  the 
powers  necessary  for  the  material  and  moral  development  of  the 
colony.”  2 In  North  Italy  some  of  the  most  admirable  types  of 
rural  cooperation  that  the  world  knows  have  been  developed,  but 
in  Rio  Grande  the  promising  introduction  in  late  years  of  coopera- 
tive societies  for  making  wine,  lard,  and  dairy  products  has  de- 
pended on  the  initiative  of  the  Federal  and  State  governments. 
Of  subsidiary  industries  there  have  been  few.  The  beginnings  of 
silk  weaving  are  hopeful,3  and  baskets,  chairs,  wickerware,  and 
especially  hats,  have  been  made. 

The  routine  of  life  in  Rio  Grande  is  not  dull.  For  worship,  for 
a holiday,  and  for  business,  the  farmers  come  to  the  centers  on 
Sundays.  Like  the  Germans  also,  they  have  learned  the  use  of 

1 In  18S7,  May  Frances,  a youthful  English  traveller,  noted  the  attractiveness 
here  of  “ two  estancias  owned  by  Italians,  who  have  planted  rows  of  Lombardy 
poplars,  and  whose  abodes  resemble  English  farmhouses,  they  look  so  much  cleaner 
and  more  thriving  than  the  Brazilian  houses.”  Beyond  the  Argentine  (London, 
1890),  p.  85. 

2 L.  Betrocchi,  “ Gli  italiani  nel  distretto  consolare  di  Bento  Gonsalves,”  Boll. 
Emig.,  1904,  No.  18,  p.  4. 

3 The  testimony  of  an  English  traveller  may  be  noted:  “In  the  colony  of  Caxias 
. . . they  make  some  very  handsome  shawls  and  scarves,  of  which  I have  pur- 
chased some  line  specimens,  also  handkerchiefs  and  other  small  articles;  the  thread 
has  elasticity  and  luster.”  F.  Bennett,  Forty  Years  in  Brazil  (London,  1914),  P-  157- 


BRAZIL.  PIONEER  FARMING 


309 


horses  “ so  that  on  holidays  even  the  women  of  those  races  appear 
on  horseback  in  a way  that  would  startle  their  peasant  cousins 
left  at  home  in  Swabia  or  Lombardy.”  1 It  is  when  sickness  shows 
its  face  that  life  seems  dark;  for  doctors  and  drugs  are  few, 
remote,  and  costly. 

When  all  is  said,  the  accomplishment  of  the  Italians  is  a bright 
one.  A stretch  of  wilderness  has  been  redeemed;  some  trade  with 
the  world  has  been  established;  and  thousands  of  human  beings 
have  satisfied  their  major  needs.  After  Sao  Paulo  and  the  Fed- 
eral District,  this  state  is  the  most  progressive  in  Brazil:  the 
Italians  and  the  Germans  have  made  it  so.2 

So  numerous  are  the  Italians  of  the  three  southernmost  states 
and  in  many  respects  so  sharply  marked  off  from  those  of  the 
fazendas  and  the  cities,  that  I am  loath  to  leave  them  without  a 
word  on  all  together.  Let  us  note  that  they  are  as  predominantly 
Venetians  as  the  colonists  of  Argentina  are  Piedmontese,  and  that 
in  both  countries  the  Lombards  rank  second  — the  Lombards  of 
the  hills  in  Argentina,  those  of  the  plains  in  Brazil. 

1 Bryce,  p.  406.  Cf.  Venerosi  Pesciolini,  p.  242:  men  mount  a horse  to  go  200 
yards;  two  or  three  children,  on  one  horse,  ride  bareback  to  school;  women  go  to 
church  or  the  mill,  mounted,  often  carrying  children. 

2 Cf.  C.  W.  Domville-Fife,  The  United  States  of  Brazil  (London,  1910),  p.  221; 
Bryce,  p.  406.  Bryce  notes  that  the  Italians  live  in  less  comfort  than  the  Germans 
but  work  as  steadily.  More  outspoken  praise  of  the  Italian  qualities  is  that  of  L. 
L.  Flores,  Estado  do  Rio  Grande  do  Sul  (Rio  Grande  do  Sul,  1897),  p.  30. 

In  general,  on  the  Italians,  see  Venerosi  Pesciolini,  pp.  13-113;  Cusano, 
pp.  239-274;  Denis,  ch.  xi;  Emigrazione  agricola  al  Brasile,  passim;  E.  A.  Las- 
sance  Cunby,  0 Rio  Grande  do  Sul  (Rio  de  Janeiro,  1908),  pp.  209-278;  E.  Ciapelli, 
“ Lo  stato  di  Rio  Grande  del  Sud  e rimmigrazione  italiana,”  Boll.  Ernig.,  1903,  No. 
4,  pp.  48-59;  Petrocchi,  pp.  3-13,  and  his  other  contributions  to  Boll.  Emig.,  viz., 
1904,  No.  13,  pp.  11-19;  1905,  No.  8,  pp.  3-15;  1906,  No.  5,  pp.  n-31;  E.  Cia- 
pelli, “ Lo  stato  di  Rio  Grande  del  Sud,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1905,  No.  12,  pp.  3-83;  U. 
Ancarini,  “ La  colonia  italiana  di  Caxias,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1905,  No.  19,  pp.  3-30;  F. 
De  Velutiis,  “ Lo  stato  di  Rio  Grande  del  Sud  e la  crisi  economica  durante  l’ultimo 
quinquennio,”  Emig.  e Col.,  1908,  iii‘,  pp.  283-359;  G.  B.  Beverini  “ Nella  zona 
coloniale  agricola  del  Rio  Grande  del  Sud,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1913,  No.  10,  pp.  3-20. 
For  the  text  of  the  colonization  laws,  etc.,  see  Boll.  Emig.,  1906,  No.  n,  pp.  13-34. 
Some  useful  passages  are  also  in  Delgado  de  Carvalho,  pp.  385-521;  Walle,  pp.  312- 
351;  and  the  observations  of  a former  president  of  Colombia,  R.  Reyes,  The  Two 
Americas  (tr.  by  L.  Grahame,  London,  1914),  pp.  135-165 — a section  dealing 
with  the  southern  states  generally. 


3io 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


They  are  never  hired  farm  hands,  but  all  are  proprietors  and 
most  are  secure  in  their  possessions.  The  crops  they  grow  partly 
resemble  those  of  Italy.  Some  they  have  introduced; 1 others  the 
Germans  or  Brazilians  had  first  grown.  How  far  their  cultivation 
of  Italian  crops  — fortunate  for  Brazil  — has  depended  upon 
inertia,  how  far  upon  enterprise,  is  not  easily  said.  Certainly  they 
have  manifested  no  enterprise  in  learning  to  use  machines,  though 
they  live  in  a country  where  horses  and  mules  are  cheap,  and 
where,  therefore,  machines  may  be  inexpensively  employed.  Nor 
have  they  to  any  extent,  unlike  the  Germans,  undertaken  to  raise 
cattle  or  sheep,  contenting  themselves  with  pigs  and  poultry  as 
they  had  done  in  Venetia.  They  have  put  their  profits  into  land, 
and  some  have  by  now  acquired  twenty  or  more  lots  of  20-25 
hectares  each;  it  is  common  to  present  a lot  to  the  newly  mar- 
ried child.  Cooperative  societies  have  made  a start  in  Santa 
Catharina,  just  as  in  Rio  Grande,  but  in  both  states  it  has  been 
under  government  leadership.2 

In  all  three  states  trade  has  been  handicapped  by  distance 
from  markets,  the  lack  of  railways  or  the  high  tariffs,  the  want  or 
the  badness  of  wagon  roads..  In  trade  the  Italians  have  counted 
for  much  less  than  the  Germans,  and  in  industry- — despite 
interesting  beginnings  — for  less  than  both  Germans  and  Bra- 
zilians. 

Few  are  rich,  few  poor.  Abject  poverty  they  do  not  know. 
Though  world  events  touch  them  — a small  crisis  came  with  the 
outbreak  of  the  European  war  — they  are  nearly  self-sufficient 
and  are  protected  by  their  isolation.  Their  houses  are  small, 
generally  of  wood,  but  in  some  places  are  of  masonry;  and  travel- 
lers have  often  remarked  the  orderliness  and  cleanliness  inside. 
Food  is  abundant  and  varied,  not  including  a daily  portion  of 
meat,  yet  pork  and  fowl  upon  occasion.  The  routine  of  life  is 
healthful;  but  unlucky  are  those  who  fall  ill,  for  medical  facilities 
— not  in  Rio  Grande  only  — are  wretched.  Great  hardship  is 
experienced  where  the  hookworm  and  malaria  prevail;  and  pro- 

1 Bertarelli  (p.  56)  mentions  the  cucumber,  asparagus,  melon,  and  tomato. 

* For  a clear  statement  of  the  forms  of  cooperation,  see  Guzzini  in  Emigrazione 
agricola  al  Bras  He,  pp.  257-288. 


BRAZIL.  PIONEER  FARMING  3 1 1 

longed  and  widespread  suffering  of  the  women  has  resulted  from 
the  absence  of  obstetrical  care. 

The  traditional  religion  clings  tightly. 

“ I do  not  know,”  writes  a priest  who  diligently  visited  nearly  every 
colony,  “any  other  country  in  which  the  priest  has  equal  authority.  This 
derives  from  the  fact  that  he  is  generally  the  only  schooled  person  and  the 
only  one  who  disinterestedly  busies  himself  with  the  colonists’  affairs.  He 
is  their  counsellor  in  all  things,  even  material.  When  a colonist  falls  sick, 
he  is  sought  before  the  doctor  is  called.  Nothing  is  done  without  his  opinion. 
With  difficulty  may  a stranger  be  heard  in  a colony  unless  with  the  priest’s 
approval.  When  latterly  commissioners  came  to  Rio  Grande  from  the 
Brazilian  government  to  rouse  an  interest  in  cooperative  schemes,  they  had 
no  success  whatever  until  the  priests  had  spoken.”  1 

Some  loosening  of  parental  authority  there  has  been,  such  as  in 
many  countries  takes  place  among  immigrant  families.  Yet  it  is 
a little  surprising  that  it  should  occur  in  these  rural  states,  where 
distractions  are  few.  And  the  children  secure  but  a skimped 
education,  in  Italian  or  Brazilian  schools. 

If  the  Italians  had  come  to  these  states  with  the  capital,  the 
supple  agricultural  knowledge,  the  trained  leaders  of  the  Ger- 
mans, they  would  be  much  better  off  than  they  are.  But  neither 
Germans  nor  Brazilians  have  yet  learned  how  best  to  cope  with 
and  to  cooperate  with  Nature.  Once  soil  and  climate  have  been 
subjected  to  that  close  study  which  in  some  lands  has  quite  trans- 
formed the  routine  of  agriculture,  a new  day  may  dawn  for  the 
Italians.2 

The  time  will  come  when,  through  the  growth  of  population  and 
the  multiplication  of  highways,  the  Italian  farmers  will  reap  the 
advantage  that  the  world  grants  to  first  settlers.  Their  lands  will 
rise  in  value  and  they  will  attain  some  of  that  status  of  ease  which 
the  Germans  have  already  reached.  Here  is  one  supreme  advan- 
tage which  ownership  has  over  wage  earning,  and  since  these 
southern  states  are  rich  in  the  gifts  of  Nature,  it  will  surely  count 
for  much.  Mines  and  manufactures  are  also  destined  to  develop, 
and  an  active  general  trade. 

1 Venerosi  Peseiolini,  p.  266. 

2 On  recent  governmental  attempts  in  Brazil  to  extend  the  knowledge  of  agri- 
culture, see  A.  Ledent,  “ Le  Bresil  et  l’enseignement  agricole,”  Revue  Economique 
Internationale,  March,  1910,  pp.  509-537. 


312 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


It  is  difficult  to  believe  that  a well-conducted  settlement  of 
Italian  immigrants  in  small  properties  in  Sao  Paulo  and  Minas 
Geraes  would  interfere  with  the  work  of  the  coffee  plantations. 
The  planters,  we  have  seen,  could  manage  with  fewer  laborers 
during  the  year,  if  assured  of  a supply  of  harvest  hands.  If  Ital- 
ians lived  as  independent  proprietors  at  no  great  distance,  still 
perhaps  paying  off  their  land,  some  would  surely  migrate  to  the 
fazendas  for  the  harvest.  Every  further  development  of  the 
means  of  communication  makes  the  suggestion  less  fanciful.  In 
recent  years  Sao  Paulo  has  offered  free  land  transportation  for 
harvest  workers,  and  many  hundreds  have  responded.  The 
stream  flows  in  from  Minas,  from  Parana,  even  from  Santa 
Catharina;  the  return  reaches  as  far  as  to  Argentina,  even  to 
Europe.  So  simply  learned  are  the  final  operations  that  even 
townsfolk  undertake  them,  coming  from  the  various  cities  of 
Sao  Paulo. 

Such  a plan,  advantageous  for  the  independent  farmers,  would 
somewhat  relieve  the  pressure  upon  the  Italians  established  in  the 
fazendas.  But  still  another  plan  might  help.  Brazil  is  no  excep- 
tion to  the  rule  that  in  new  countries  the  large  estates  of  early 
days  tend  to  break  up.  Already  in  the  older  districts  the  fazendas 
are  smaller.  It  is  only  the  last  stage  in  production,  that  of  trans- 
forming the  harvested  berries  into  commercial  coffee,  that  requires 
a scale  of  operations  beyond  the  reach  of  the  small  proprietor.  If 
the  Italians,  instead  of  being  wage  earners,  were  to  become  inde- 
pendent proprietors,  as  some  already  are,  they  might  coopera- 
tively undertake  the  last  stage.  What  they  have  done  farther 
south  in  making  grapes  into  wine,  hog  fats  into  lard,  cream  into 
butter,  they  might  repeat  in  drying  berries  for  coffee.  So  would 
stability  replace  an  irregular  swelling  and  depletion  of  the  labor 
force,  and  a more  enterprising  race  of  laborers  arise.  Already  at 
Morro-Cipo  a considerable  group  of  Italians  own  and,  unaided, 
cultivate  small  plantations,  some  with  less  than  a thousand  plants, 
some  with  more  than  twenty  thousand ; they  take  their  berries  to 
the  city  where,  for  a share  of  the  product,  a company  performs  the 
machine  operations.  And  at  another  point  near  Ribeirao  Preto, 


BRAZIL.  GENERAL  ASPECTS  OF  ITALIAN  LIFE  3 1 3 


a cooperative  society  was  organized  with  the  plan  of  gradually 
acquiring  ownership  of  the  needed  machinery.1 

Although  the  Italians  have  in  no  other  country  given  them- 
selves in  such  numbers  to  agriculture  as  in  Brazil,  yet  their  work 
in  other  occupations  there  is  so  important  that  we  cannot  pass 
it  by. 

They  have  been  railway  construction  hands.  On  the  important 
line  which  runs  from  Sao  Paulo  through  Parana  and  Santa  Catha- 
rina  into  Rio  Grande  do  Sul,  not  to  speak  of  smaller  projects, 
large  numbers  of  Italians  were  employed.  It  was  work  on  the 
railroads  of  Parana  in  1876  that  started  the  immigrants  there  on 
their  path  of  success.  The  stretch  of  line  seventy-five  miles  long 
connecting  Paranagua  with  Curityba,  rising  from  sea  level  to  a 
height  of  2700  feet  along  a treacherously  steep  mountain  wall, 
consisting  of  a succession  of  trestles  and  tunnels,  was  one  of  the 
most  arduous  railway  enterprises  in  South  America.  An  Italian 
engineer  directed  its  construction  and  the  great  majority  of 
workers,  it  is  claimed,  were  Italian.  By  the  state  of  Sao  Paulo 
they  have  often  been  employed.  Recently  they  have  helped  cut 
the  road  through  the  forest  to  Matto  Grosso,  and  on  the  line  into 
the  state  of  Goyaz  most  of  the  laborers  are  said  to  have  been 
Italians.2 

Much  other  construction  work,  public  and  private,  has  fallen 
to  them.  In  the  agricultural  colonies,  they  of  necessity  undertook 
to  build  roads.  They  have  done  an  important  part  of  the  street 
work  of  Sao  Paulo  and  Rio  de  Janeiro,  and  much  of  the  harbor 
work  of  Rio.  Most  commonly  these  construction  laborers  (and 
the  railway  builders  may  be  included)  have  been  South  Ital- 
ians. Hence,  by  their  origin,  as  well  as  by  their  careers,  they 

1 On  these  experiments,  see  Denis,  pp.  170  f. 

2 On  railway  builders,  see,  c.g.,  Venerosi  Pesciolini,  pp.  126,  160,  209  f.;  F.mig.  e 
Col.,  1893,  P-  I12;  Fortunati,  p.  73;  Umilta,  p.  54;  Napoli  and  Belli,  pp.  27!.; 
P.  Guerra,  V emigrazione  italiana  e gli  Slati  Uniti  dell’  America  Latina  (Rome, 
1910),  p.  70;  H.  Stephens,  South  American  Travels  (New  York,  1915),  pp.  574-593; 
and  these  passages  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1902,  No.  n,  pp.  52  f . ; 1903,  No.  7,  p.  32  and 
No.  10,  p.  9;  1905,  No.  7,  p.  4;  No.  12,  p.  73;  No.  18,  p.  276;  1908,  No.  16,  p.  5. 


314  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

are  to  be  marked  off  sharply  from  the  plantation  hands  and  the 
farmers.1 

Merchants,  artisans,  operatives — townsfolk  generally  — have 
been  a numerous  throng.  None  of  the  260  Italians  reported  in 
Matto  Grosso  a quarter  century  ago  were  in  agriculture;  all  were 
successful  craftsmen  and  tradespeople;  and  of  their  sort  there 
were  many  in  other  southern  states.2  Then  already  had  arisen  the 
instance,  soon  to  become  a type,  of  the  Italian  wholesaler  serving 
as  a center  for  numerous  petty  traders  who  tramped  venture- 
somely about  the  country,  as  far  even  as  Bahia.  These  roving 
merchants  were  usually  Neapolitans  who  took  up  their  business 
soon  after  arrival  in  Brazil.  When  a North  Italian  entered  trade, 
it  was  usually  after  he  had  accumulated  a small  property  in  agri- 
culture and  then  moved  to  the  city.  Yet  innumerable  South 
Italians  have  also  kept  to  the  cities,  especially  Rio,  selling  fish  and 
fowl,  vegetables  and  fruit,  and  small  wares,  in  the  streets  or  in 
shops.  In  recent  years  the  small  street  dealers  of  the  Federal 
Capital  have  been  almost  routed  by  competing  Syrians,  who  have 
even  opened  their  own  wholesale  houses.3 

Italians  of  the  South,  especially  from  Basilicata,  have  long  been 
bootblacks  in  the  cities,  not  only  in  Rio,  but  in  Sao  Paulo,  Santos. 
Campinas,  even  in  northern  Pernambuco.  In  the  capital,  over  a 
long  stretch  of  years,  they  were  almost  without  competitors. 
Theirs  has  been  a strange  monopoly  indeed,  but  often  the  first 
step  out  from  the  ranks  of  the  humble. 

In  Rio,  again,  many  building  artisans  have  made  a living,  and 
innumerable  tailors,  cobblers,  barbers,  cooks,  and  waiters.  Many 
have  been  tramway  employees,  or  occupied  in  the  public  cleaning 
and  lighting  departments,  or  as  harbor  workmen.  A minority  of 
these  workers  have  been  Venetians,  Lombards  or  Ligurians ; the 

1 Reale  Soc.  Geog.  Ital.,  p.  125  (cf.  pp.  149-151);  Boll.  Entig.,  1904,  No.  14, 
p.  11;  1905,  No.  3,  p.  55  and  No.  13,  p.  7;  1907,  No.  18,  pp.  273,  276. 

2 Emig.  e Col.,  1893,  pp.  109-m,  145,  160,  171  f. 

3 “ Victory  came  easily  to  the  Syrians,  since  this  race  is  content  with  the  lowest 
gains,  living,  abjectly  of  course,  upon  a few  pennies  of  expenditure,  toiling  like 
beasts  of  burden.”  Napoli  and  Belli,  p.  97.  Familiar  words,  these,  but  they  have 
generally  been  directed  against  the  Italians! 


BRAZIL.  GENERAL  ASPECTS  OF  ITALIAN  LIFE  3 1 5 


great  majority  have  come  from  Calabria,  Basilicata,  and  Cam- 
pania. Here  and  there  among  them,  men  have  risen  to  distinc- 
tion in  the  arts  and  in  business.  The  Calabrian  Jannuzzi,  an 
immigrant  of  1872,  became  a well-reputed  designer  and  builder, 
and  erected  more  than  a thousand  structures.  Such  an  example 
shows  what  is  possible  but  does  not  even  remotely  suggest  what 
is  usual.  In  the  comprehensive  municipal  improvement  works 
undertaken  in  Rio  some  years  ago,  a host  of  Italians,  some  in  the 
high  places,  but  most  in  the  low,  participated.1 

Not  Rio,  however,  but  Sao  Paulo  City,  is  the  metropolis  of  the 
Italians,  as  it  is  the  metropolis  of  interior  Brazil.  They  are  (all 
estimates  agree)  at  least  a third  of  the  population ; and  in  its  busy 
life  — no  city  in  South  America  is  more  active  — they  have 
counted  for  much.  Somewhat  they  control  the  large  enterprises 

— textiles,  hatmaking,  food  establishments,  brick  and  cement 
making,  leather  tanning  — but  principally  they  crowd  the  middle 
and  lower  strata  of  employments.  Shoemakers,  tailors,  barbers, 
bakers  and  grocers  of  Italian  origin  are  everywhere ; so  are  drivers 
of  vehicles.  Innumerable  drinking  saloons,  well  fitted  out  with 
marble  counters,  are  owned  by  Italians,  and  countless  fruit  stalls 

— the  two  often  in  conjunction.  Itinerant  vendors  are  many,  but 
fewer  than  they  once  were.  Sellers  of  newspapers  abound. 
Numerous  are  the  employees  of  the  large  manufacturing  and 
trading  concerns,  and  the  building  workmen.  Nearly  all  the 
marble  cutters  of  the  state  as  well  as  of  the  city  are  Italian;  and 
innumerable  are  the  common  laborers.  In  the  professions,  the 
architects  have  stood  highest,  and  the  good  taste  that  has  found 
its  way  into  the  buildings  of  the  city  is  largely  of  their  bringing. 
In  one  way  or  another,  the  Italians  have  made  a most  substantial 
contribution  to  its  fife,  those  from  the  North,  however,  more  than 
those  from  the  South.  Needless  to  say,  they  are  in  Sao  Paulo  the 
leading  foreign  group,  while  the  Rio  Italians  are  outnumbered  by 
the  Portuguese.2 

1 II  Brasile  e gli  italiani,  pp.  752,  851-875;  Napoli  and  Belli,  pp.  51-53,  72-75, 
83-96;  F.  Mazzini,  “ Gl’  interessi  sociali  ed  economici  italiani  nel  distretto  con- 
solare  di  Rio  di  Janeiro,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1905,  No.  13,  pp.  3-69  (cf.  No.  11,  pp.  45  f.). 

2 Besides  many  references  in  the  consular  reports  and  in  the  volume  II  Brasile 
e gli  italiani  (esp.  pp.  746,  857-936),  see  the  reports  of  visitors:  Bryce,  pp.  376  f.; 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


316 

In  the  coffee  port,  Santos,  Italian  is  the  language  of  thousands 
whose  occupations  are  almost  as  varied  as  those  at  Sao  Paulo. 
At  Ribeirao  Preto  a rough  census  of  1902  gave  the  Italians  21,765 
inhabitants,  nearly  half  the  city’s  population.  In  1887  there  were 
already  said  to  be  3000  Italians  at  Campinas,  of  whom  a fifth 
were  in  trade.1  They  are  to  be  found  in  all  the  smaller  centers  of 
Sao  Paulo.  Here  an  Italian  runs  the  chief  hotel,  there  he  controls 
the  shops;  here  he  leads  the  band  and  there  he  is  the  only  doctor. 
Finally,  far  to  the  north,  in  hot  Bahia,  westward  in  the  cities 
of  Minas  Geraes,  southward  in  Curityba,  Florianopolis,  Porto 
Alegre,  the  same  city  types  appear,  and  generally  with  the  same 
South  Italian  predominance. 

Whoever  would  understand  the  life  of  the  Italians  in  Brazil, 
and  particularly  the  shadow  of  failure  that  has  tinged  the  careers 
of  so  many,  both  on  the  fazendas  and  elsewhere,  should  recollect 
the  melancholy  condition  in  which  they  arrived.  They  brought 
into  the  country  little  of  capital  or  of  personal  accomplishment. 
When  the  first  great  influx  began,  Marchesini  declared  that  with- 
out the  help  of  others  the  emigrants  fresh  from  Italy  would  starve, 
and  he  cited  a report  of  the  chief  executive  of  Santa  Catharina  to 
the  effect  that  while  the  Germans  arrived  with  clothing,  baggage, 
and  implements  the  Italians  came  in  rags.2  The  more  casual 
Marcone  who  also  visited  Brazil  in  the  middle  seventies  pictured 
the  thousands  of  Italians  whom  he  saw  as  “ all  covered  with  rags, 
disheartenment  writ  upon  their  brows,”  and  by  these  tokens  they 
could  anywhere  be  quickly  recognized.3  In  1887  Perrod  wrote 
that  there  was  no  such  poverty  in  his  own  poor  Val  d’Aosta  as 
about  him  in  Sao  Paulo;  rare  were  those  who  could  make  modest 
savings  except  by  painful  sacrifices.4  Incessantly  the  warning  is 

Bertarelli,  p.  54;  Stephens,  pp.  556-563;  Bernardez,  pp.  220-222-,  I.ombroso- 
Ferrero,  pp.  30-38;  J.  Bumichon,  Le  Brcsil  d’aujourd’hui  (Paris,  1910),  p.  228.  Cf., 
for  the  comprehensive  services  of  the  Italians,  the  testimony  of  a Brazilian,  B.  de 
Magalhaes,  O estado  de  S.  Paulo  (Rio  de  Janeiro,  1913),  p.  25. 

1 Perrod,  pp.  39-62;  he  reports  also  on  the  other  urban  centers  of  Sao  Paulo. 

2 Marchesini,  pp.  132,  135  f.;  cf.  pp.  159  f. 

3 Marcone,  pp.  66,  93. 

4 Perrod,  p.  34. 


BRAZIL.  GENERAL  ASPECTS  OF  ITALIAN  LIFE  3 1 7 


repeated  that  the  feeble  will  fail  in  Brazil;  and  this,  if  true  of  the 
fazendas,  holds  all  the  more  of  the  colonies,  where  the  forest  must 
be  cleared  away  and  the  soil  bared.  Yet  when  the  initial  hard- 
ships of  the  colonies  had  been  overcome,  many  there,  as  we  have 
seen,  rose  to  relative  comfort. 

The  more  fortunate,  the  stronger,  the  sharper-witted  every- 
where made  their  foothold  secure.  The  mass,  over  much  of  the 
country,  found  their  task  in  varying  degrees  too  formidable.  It 
is  not  a bad  living  which  many  have  made  in  the  cities,  yet  there 
too  they  have  suffered,  and  over  broad  districts  of  Rio  and  of  Sao 
Paulo  the  crowded  houses,  ill-suited  to  human  living,  still  reflect 
their  stinted  fortunes.  A small  group  of  technical  workers  have 
done  well  in  industry  and  building;  in  trade  and  in  industry, 
superior  qualities  have  carried  other  men  to  heights  they  might 
not  have  reached  in  Italy;  but  all  these  are  exceptional  men. 

Culturally,  the  immigrants  have  lived  upon  a humble  plane. 
Probably  a majority  of  the  North  Italians  of  the  great  influx  were 
illiterate  and  doubtless  most  of  the  South  Italians  have  been  so. 
Many  of  their  children  in  the  fazendas  and  in  the  colonies  have 
grown  to  manhood  quite  untaught.  And  although  two  hundred 
schools  or  more  have  been  moderately  subsidized  by  the  Italian 
government,  it  is  a meager  education  that  they  provide.  Cor- 
radini  wrote:  “ I personally  visited  some  80  of  the  120  or  150 
schools  in  Sao  Paulo.  With  few  exceptions  — judged  on  pedagog- 
ical and  on  sanitary  grounds  — they  are  a horror  and  a shame  to 
the  name  of  Italy.”  1 

Societies  for  mutual  aid  and  other  purposes  are  relatively  far 
less  numerous  and  strong  than  those  of  Argentina.  But  if  the 
comparison  be  omitted  they  must  still  be  called  numerous! 
Many  once  dominant  have  become  defunct,  and  many  are  weak. 
Petty  personalities  and  the  regionalist  spirit  have  split  them  and 
kept  them  in  contention.2 

1 II  volere  d’ltalia,  p.  68.  Pp.  796-810  of  II  Brasile  e gli  italiani  list  the  sub- 
sidized schools.  See  also  Bonardelli,  pp.  114-116;  Umilta.,  p.  52;  Franzoia,  pp.  42- 
46;  Petrocchi,  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1914,  pp.  53  f. 

2 II  Brasile  e gli  italiani,  pp.  811-839;  Napoli  and  Belli,  pp.  101-117;  Bonar- 
delli, p.124;  Venerosi  Pesciolini,  p.  213;  Bertarelli,  pp.  80  f.;  Umilta,  p.  51.  On 
some  interesting  women’s  organizations,  see  Baroncelli-Grosson,  pp.  269-28^ 


3 1 8 ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

If  the  Italians  had  cohesion  they  might  count  politically.  Ex- 
cept in  the  colonies,  where  many  have  yielded  up  their  native 
citizenship,  naturalization  has  been  uncommon.  When  in  1889 
aliens  were  given  a term  in  which  to  demand  to  be  allowed  to 
retain  their  citizenship,  the  Italians  in  Sao  Paulo  flocked  to  make 
their  claims.  They  have  shown  no  interest  in  the  question  of 
change  of  allegiance,  and  their  names  rarely  appear  in  the  official 
reports  on  naturalization.1  It  must  be  remembered,  however, 
that  Brazilian  politics  have  been  less  of  parties  and  issues  than  of 
personalities.  Some  inclination  toward  socialism  they  have 
shown,  even  enough,  it  is  claimed,  to  constitute  an  important  in- 
fluence in  the  state.  To  them,  in  fact,  the  transition  has  been 
ascribed,  in  the  cities  of  Sao  Paulo,  from  an  era  of  vague  discus- 
sion about  the  new  doctrine  to  the  formation  of  a workmen’s 
party.2 

Touching  Italy,  too,  the  collective  spirit  of  the  Italians  has  been 
weak.  The  purse  opens  to  an  appeal  to  help  the  flood  sufferers  of 
the  Po,  the  victims  of  the  eruptions  of  Vesuvius,  of  the  cholera  in 
Naples,  of  the  earthquakes  in  Calabria,  Sicily,  the  Abruzzi;  the 
heart  is  stirred  to  commemorate,  upon  their  deaths,  Victor 
Emmanuel  II,  Garibaldi,  Humbert,  or  it  cheers  to  the  celebration 
of  the  Twentieth  of  September  or  the  anniversary  of  Garibaldi’s 
birth;  but  when  these  occasions  are  past,  apathy  reigns  again. 
Race  pride  cannot  be  counted  on  to  perpetuate  Italian  influence 
in  Brazil,  for  it  is  not  even  maintained.  Fresh  arrivals  of  immi- 
grants are  few,  and  the  children  acknowledge  a new  country. 

But  if  the  ideal  influence  of  modern  Italy  is  not  kept  alive  in 
Brazil,  the  attributes  we  call  Italian  are  fairly  tenacious.  In  the 
southern  colonies  and  the  many  embryonic  social  communities  of 
the  southern  states,  the  Italian  tongue,  and  much  even  of  the 
Italian  dress,  will  endure  long  after  patriotic  sentiment  has  cooled. 
In  the  metropolis,  it  is  true,  speech  and  dress  retreat  before  the 
assaults  of  custom  and  fashion,  but,  even  there,  pressure  cannot 
obliterate  essential  traits,  and  what  seeks  to  change  is  itself 

1 E.g .,  Sao  Paulo,  Secretaria  da  Justija  e da  Segurange  Publica,  Rdatorio,  1913 
(Sao  Paulo,  1914),  pp.  166-171. 

2 II  Brasile  e gli  italiani,  pp.  773-778,  843;  Napoli  and  Belli,  pp.  31  f.;  Umilta, 
PP-  5i,  54- 


BRAZIL.  GENERAL  ASPECTS  OF  ITALIAN  LIFE  3 1 9 


changed.  Italian  words  find  their  way  into  Portuguese,  and  Por- 
tuguese into  Italian,  and  these  are  the  symbols  of  mutations  too 
numerous  or  too  subtle  to  count  and  discern. 

Brazil  cannot  lose  her  Italian  strain.  It  is  too  sturdily  rooted. 
For  every  Italian  who  goes  back  to  Italy,  some  arrive  and  many 
are  born.  The  birth  rate,  here  as  in  Argentina,  is  high,  whether 
one  inquires  in  the  colonies,  or  in  the  fazendas;  and  every  child 
past  toddling  earns  more  than  its  current  cost.1  In  Sao  Paulo,  the 
most  progressive  state  in  Brazil,  the  Italian  strain  now  amounts  to 
one-third  at  least  of  the  population.  In  the  three  states  to  the 
south  it  is  perhaps  a tenth.  In  Brazil  as  a whole,  it  may  be  seven 
per  cent.  But  in  the  civilization  of  the  country  the  Italians,  like 
the  other  foreigners,  count  for  much  more  than  their  fraction  of 
a population  of  twenty  million,  in  which  Indians,  negroes,  and 
various  mixed  stocks  are  included. 

For  the  energy,  application,  and  economy  in  living  which  these 
immigrants  have  shown,  they  have  generally  been  welcomed  by 
the  Paulist  aristocracy  and  the  Portuguese  stock.  Of  personal 
disprizal  of  the  humbler  types  there  has  been  a good  deal,  but 
never  a feeling  that  the  immigration  was  not  in  itself  a boon, 
conferring  great  advantages  upon  the  country.2  Once  the  fear 
obtained  in  some  quarters  that  the  Italians  might  become  over- 
powerful in  the  state,  and  it  prompted  the  endeavor  to  set  off 
against  them  colonists  of  other  nationalities.  But  the  fear  has 
long  since  subsided  and  in  its  place  there  is  unmistakable  regret 
that  the  Italian  stream  has  slackened.  There  is  even  the  thought 
that  resort  to  Asiatic  laborers  might  be  necessary  to  maintain  the 
great  activity  of  the  fazendas. 

1 There  are  no  useful  statistics,  but  innumerable  comments.  I submit  one  only: 
“ In  the  Italian  colony,  however  [Curityba],  I observed  that  the  families  were 
larger,  with  a closer  union  among  them  than  in  the  others.”  Reyes,  p.  146.  He 
tells  of  one  man  who,  having  immigrated  thirty  years  previously,  had  had  ten 
children  of  whom  all  were  married  and  all  had  in  turn  had  children. 

2 There  is  little  indication  that  in  Sao  Paulo  the  Italians  are  an  admitted  social 
burden  of  any  consequence.  Few  are  in  the  asylums  for  the  insane,  or  the  orphan- 
ages, and  in  1^3  only  two  were  among  the  offenders  sent  to  the  correctional 
colony.  Annuario  estatislico,  1912,  pp.  264,  269;  Secretaria  da  Justifa,  etc., 
pp.  181-1S3. 


CHAPTER  XVII 


UNITED  STATES.1  I.  COMING  OF  THE  ITALIANS. 

SOME  SPECIALIZED  TYPES 

Throughout  the  nineteenth  century,  the  immigration  of  Italians 
into  South  America  exceeded  that  into  North  America.  In  the 
twentieth,  although  the  current  has  poured  much  more  copiously 
into  the  northern  continent  than  into  the  southern,  the  difference 
has  not  yet  been  made  up.  Any  attempt  to  find  in  the  history  of 
the  Italians  in  Argentina  and  Brazil  a clew  to  their  fortunes  in  the 
United  States  is  bound  to  fail,  partly  because  the  Italians  who 
came  were  mainly  of  a different  sort  and  partly  because  their 
destination  was  a broadly  different  country.  It  needs  a knowl- 
edge of  the  Italian  experience  in  the  United  States  to  complete  an 
understanding  of  the  work  and  fortunes  of  the  emigrants  from 
modern  Italy. 

That  part  which  the  Italians  played  in  Argentina  during  the 
second  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  is  one  which  in  the  United 
States  fell  to  immigrants  who  preceded  the  Italians  and  to  natives 
of  the  seaboard.  With  opening  up  the  country,  geographically 
speaking,  they  had  little  to  do.  The  early  westward  movement 
was  accomplished  by  Easterners  who,  to  the  number  of  half  a mil- 
lion, entered  western  New  York  and  Virginia,  Tennessee  and 
Kentucky,  between  the  American  Revolution  and  the  year  1800. 
A score  of  years  later  Americans  had  settled  the  Ohio  Valley;  by 
1840,  the  cotton  states  of  the  Southwest,  and  Illinois  and  Indiana; 
by  i860,  the  eastern  portion  generally  of  the  Mississippi  Valley. 
The  tumultuous  settlement  of  California  in  the  years  of  gold  dis- 
covery was  followed  by  the  gradual  development  of  the  entire 
Pacific  coast,  coincident,  in  great  part,  with  the  peopling  of  the 
western  portion  of  the  Mississippi  Valley. 

This  swift  course  of  migration  and  settlement  was  hastened,  if 
it  was  not  indeed  made  possible,  by  two  momentous  forces.  One 

1 In  these  chapters  I have  incidentally  referred  to  the  Italians  in  Canada.  In 
1901,  10,834  were  enumerated  there,  and  in  the  fiscal  years  1901-16,  according  to 
Canadian  statistics,  119,346  came. 


320 


UNITED  STATES.  COMING  OF  THE  ITALIANS  321 


is  the  improvement  in  transportation.  The  twenty-five  years  in 
the  course  of  which  the  steamboat  was  proved  practicable,  the 
Erie  Canal  opened,  and  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad  begun, 
constitute  an  epoch.  Rapidly  thereafter  the  mileage  of  railways 
was  redoubled,  pushed  into  the  West  even  faster  than  settlers 
would  go.  In  the  first  ten  or  twenty  years  of  the  century,  pressed 
on  by  political  and  military  contingencies,  the  factory  had 
crowded  out  the  domestic  system;  but  the  incessantly  ripening 
chances  of  securing  cheap  land  in  the  West  tended,  by  abstracting 
the  population,  to  limit  the  expansion  of  manufactures.  This 
tendency  was  itself,  however,  partly  held  in  check  by  the  second 
momentous  force  of  the  period.  The  immigration  of  European 
settlers,  never,  since  colonial  days,  wholly  arrested,  but  fluctuat- 
ing with  the  years  and  fed  by  shifting  currents,  supplied  the  places 
of  many  Americans  who  moved  West.  At  times,  as  in  the  decade 
1810-20,  the  population  of  some  important  eastern  cities  and 
states  was  hardly  more  than  maintained;  but  as  the  stream  of 
immigrants  became  heavier  the  places  of  those  who  went  West 
were  more  than  filled. 

Between  1840  and  1890  (while  Italians  were  going  to  South 
America)  fifteen  million  immigrants  entered  the  United  States. 
They  were  mainly  English,  Scotch,  Irish,  Welsh,  Swedes,  Nor- 
wegians, Danes,  and  Germans.  By  predilection  they  established 
themselves  in  the  cities  and  states  of  the  seaboard;  for  then,  as 
now,  the  immigration  was  of  persons  whose  means  were  slender 
and  who  sought  an  easy  adaptation  to  the  country.  A courageous 
minority,  Swedes  and  Norwegians  largely,  made  pioneer  settle- 
ments in  the  agricultural  West  and  Northwest,  displaying  much  of 
that  independence  of  character  that  had  marked  the  Easterners 
who  went  West.  Only  in  the  most  indirect  way — the  contrast 
with  Brazil  is  emphatic  — could  it  be  shown  that  the  collapse  of 
slavery  had  anything  to  do  with  the  coming  of  the  foreigners. 

Yet  even  the  movement  of  these  immigrants  into  the  West  de- 
pended first  of  all  upon  the  railway  building  of  the  country.  In  a 
few  years  after  the  Civil  War  the  length  of  the  rail  course  doubled, 
touching  52,000  miles  in  1870;  after  a great  boom  it  was  93,000  in 
1880,  and  166,000  in  1890.  Almost  wholly  this  great  saddling  of 


322 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


the  continent,  an  indispensable  means  to  the  rearing  of  a great 
nation,  was  the  performance,  as  to  common  labor  and  largely 
even  as  to  skilled,  of  the  incoming  foreigners.  Digging  and  con- 
structing, in  the  opening  country,  they  received  something  at 
least  of  that  harsh  contact  with  a virgin  natural  environment 
which  in  earlier  years  had  conferred  upon  the  frontier  settlers 
some  of  their  most  valuable  traits.  The  first  results  of  the  exten- 
sion of  the  railways  were  quick  to  appear.  To  the  riches  of  cotton 
and  tobacco  were  added  the  astounding  harvests  of  wheat  and 
corn. 

In  the  early  years  of  the  century  the  men  who  created  the  coun- 
try’s wealth  were,  characteristically,  self-dependent  owners  of 
their  farms  and  shops.  Such  they  could  be  because  the  acquisi- 
tion of  a farm  on  the  public  lands  was  a universal  alternative  to 
employment  by  others.  Of  the  arriving  immigrants,  however, 
most  found  that  they  could  make  their  start  with  the  greatest 
security  not  by  independent  ventures  but  by  entrance  into  a 
hired  class.  The  creation  of  an  opportunity  for  them  was  the 
outstanding  accomplishment  of  the  second  half  of  the  century. 
In  the  first  half,  manufactures  had  unfolded  slowly  but  had  found 
an  expanding  market  in  the  opening  West,  and  after  the  Civil  War 
received  a tremendous  impetus.  Coincidently,  mining  developed. 
No  longer  was  agriculture  the  country’s  one  great  industry.  By 
1880,  30  per  cent  of  the  entire  population  were  of  foreign  birth  or 
were  the  children  of  foreign  parents.  The  sixfold  increase  in  the 
capital  invested  in  manufactures  between  the  outbreak  of  the 
Civil  War  and  the  year  1890,  a period  in  which  the  population  of 
the  country  doubled,  was  largely  made  possible  by  the  inpouring 
immigrants.  Now  social  classes  could  be  discerned.  They  were 
the  fruit  of  the  modes  of  employment  that  modern  industrial 
systems  impose  and  were  the  surest  sign  that  a primitive  phase  of 
the  history  of  the  United  States  had  come  to  an  end,  bringing  a 
modern  state.  Rich  as  are  still  the  untouched  resources  of  the 
country,  the  land  frontier  — which  as  late  as  i860  was  the  Mis- 
sissippi Valley  — could  not  be  said  to  exist  after  1890.  Hence- 
forth, to  do  well  by  himself,  a man  must  meet  the  tests  laid  down, 
not  by  Nature,  but  by  his  fellows. 


UNITED  STATES.  COMING  OF  THE  ITALIANS  323 


The  days  of  turnpike  and  stagecoach  were  only  a memory  when 
the  Italians  began  to  come.  In  all  the  time  before  1850,  their 
immigration  had  none  of  the  marks  of  a mass  movement.  Be- 
tween 1820  and  1850  less  than  4500  were  counted  and  a third  of 
these  came  by  way  of  unexplained  exception  (or  statistical  error) 
in  one  year,  1833.  When  the  census  first  distinguished  nationali- 
ties, in  1850,  3645  were  in  the  country.  To  these  in  1850-60, 
8940  were  added  by  further  immigration  — the  merest  ripple 
compared  with  the  mighty  wave  then  sweeping  in  from  western 
Europe  — and  in  i860  those  still  alive  and  in  the  country  num- 
bered 10,518.  In  1861-7.0,  12,206  disembarked  in  our  ports;  in 
1870,  17,157  were  living  here.  In  1871-80,  55,759  came  and  in 
1880,  44,230  were  still  in  the  United  States. 

Before  i860  the  immigration  appears  to  have  been  of  per- 
sons who  desired  permanent  settlement.  That  could  be  readily 
explained,  without  going  further,  by  the  difficulties  of  trans- 
portation. Chiefly  the  arrivals  were  North  Italians,  and  they 
included,  besides  traders,  many  Lucchese  vendors  of  plaster  statu- 
ary and  street  musicians  with  monkeys  — fantastic  vanguard  of 
the  brawny  army  to  follow.  Because  they  were  few,  they  escaped 
the  attention,  certainly  the  ire,  of  the  anti-immigrant  agitators 
of  the  time.  In  the  miscellany  of  the  Italians  were  a slight  but 
precious  group  of  political  refugees,  and  it  is  a fact  still  enshrined 
in  the  bosoms  of  Italians  that  chief  of  these  was  the  ubiquitous 
Garibaldi  who  lived  on  Staten  Island  while  he  made  candles  in  a 
shop  on  Bleecker  Street.1  Some  sprinkling  of  Italians  there  had 
been  in  the  cities  of  the  eastern  seaboard  since  early  colonial  days. 
Although  a few  individuals  came  to  the  western  coast  as  early  as 
1830,  larger  numbers  were  drawn  by  the  gold  fever,  to  their  very 
mediocre  profit.2 

1 The  experiences  of  one  refugee  are  described  in  the  anonymous  “Letters  of  an 
Italian  Exile,”  Southern  Literary  Messenger,  December,  1842,  pp.  741-748. 

2 Some  recollections  of  the  Italians  of  the  early  fifties  are  in  C.  Dondero,  “ L’ltalia 
agli  Stati  Uniti  ed  in  California,”  LTtalia  Coloniale,  June,  1901,  pp.  9-22.  C. 
Gardini  relates  a romantic  legend  — with  doubtless  a basis  in  fact  — of  how  in 
1858,  300  Italian  miners  gaily  went  nine  miles,  with  gifts,  to  greet  the  first  Italian 
woman  who  came  to  California.  Gli  Stati  Uniti  (2  vols.,  Bologna,  1887),  ii, 
p.  224. 


324 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


Between  i860  and  1880,  as  the  fresh  arrivals  increased,  the 
immigration  assumed  a much  more  definite  character.  Where 
before  there  had  been  individuals  there  were  now  types  and  classes. 
From  small  beginnings  the  contingent  from  South  Italy  had 
swelled  to  substantial  proportions.  After  1870,  for  the  first  time, 
it  became  evident  that,  following  a somewhat  indeterminate  stay, 
many  repacked  their  chattels  and  went  home  again.  No  previous 
immigrants  into  this  land  of  promise  had  done  that ! 

The  New  York  colony  was  passing  through  a curious  phase.  To 
the  Genoese  merchants  who  had  come  in  earlier  years  were  added, 
after  i860,  Palermitan  merchants  who  dealt  in  the  citrous  fruits 
and  oil.  But  still  other  immigrants,  of  a startling  sort,  had 
perched  and  nestled  in  the  section  called  Five  Points.  Not  so 
much  the  novelty  of  the  type  as  the  number  and  persistence  of 
those  who  embodied  it  made  it  conspicuous  even  in  the  cosmopolis. 
In  large  tenement  houses  these  everlasting  organ  grinders  and 
sellers  of  statuettes  dwelt  — how,  is  authoritatively  described  by 
that  rare  spirit  in  American  philanthropy,  Charles  Loring  Brace: 

In  the  same  room  I would  find  monkeys,  children,  men  and  women,  with 
organs  and  plaster-casts,  all  huddled  together;  but  the  women  contriving 
still,  in  the  crowded  rooms,  to  roll  their  dirty  macaroni,  and  all  talking 
excitedly;  a bedlam  of  sounds,  and  a combination  of  odors  from  garlic, 
monkeys,  and  dirty  human  persons.  They  were,  without  exception,  the 
dirtiest  population  I had  met  with.  The  children  I saw  ever}'  day  on  the 
streets,  following  organs,  blackening  boots,  selling  flowers,  sweeping  walks, 
or  carrying  ponderous  harps  for  old  ruffians.  [They  did  not,  he  adds,  go  to 
school  and  rarely  wrent  to  church,  and  many  were  indentured  to  masters.] 
The  lad  would  frequently  be  sent  forth  by  his  padrone  late  at  night,  to 
excite  the  compassion  of  our  citizens,  and  play  the  harp.  I used  to  meet 
these  boys  sometimes  on  winter  nights  half-frozen  and  stiff  with  cold.1 

About  1870  there  was  a considerable  diversity  of  types  in  the 
United  States.  They  were  largely  North  Italians,  it  would  seem, 
and  were  perhaps  more  evenly  scattered  over  the  country  than 
their  people  were  ever  again  to  be.  Some  were  grocers,  or  keep- 

1 C.  L.  Brace,  The  Dangerous  Classes  of  New  York  (3d  ed.,  New-  York,  18S0), 
pp.  194  f.  The  first  edition  was  in  1872.  In  1855  Brace  helped  to  establish  a re- 
markable school  among  these  Italians;  he  relates  its  vicissitudes  before  1S67. 
Florenzano  (pp.  154  f.)  gives  the  text  of  an  agreement  made  in  1S66  between  a 
Viggiano  father  and  an  exploiter  who  took  his  boy  to  New  York;  see  also,  on  the 
situation  of  such  boys  in  New  York,  pp.  161-164.  Cf.  Carpi,  ii,  p.  121. 


UNITED  STATES.  COMING  OF  THE  ITALIANS  325 


ers  of  barrooms  and  restaurants  — mainly  Ligurians  who  had 
settled  in  New  York.  Some  were  in  market  gardening,  especially 
about  New  Orleans,  or  in  other  branches  of  agriculture.  Many 
were  successful  stonecutters;  others  were  masons.  In  the  South 
and  West,  fishermen  had  established  themselves.  In  many  cities 
were  waiters,  street  musicians,  and  sellers  of  casts.  There  were 
sundry  important  groups  of  Sicilians  (they  had  a settlement  in 
Alabama,  for  instance)  and  Neapolitans  were  numerous.  Though 
many  disappointed  miners  had  departed  from  California,  other 
sorts  of  workers  had  stayed  there.1  Generally,  however,  in  the 
western  states  where  “ the  inhabitants  live  armed  to  the  teeth  to 
fight  Indians  and  wild  beasts,”  as  a contemporary  wrote,2  Italians 
were  few. 

A decade  later  the  New  York  colony  numbered  12,223  — in- 
cluding the  children,  possibly  20,000.  So  it  was  materially  larger 
than  before,  though  otherwise  not  greatly  changed.  In  one  of  the 
few  pictures  we  have  of  the  time,  Charlotte  Adams  noted  “ the 
child  musicians  and  the  wandering  minstrels  . . . who  pass  their 
summers  playing  on  steamboats  and  at  watering  places,”  the 
adult  organ  grinders,  and  the  makers  of  macaroni,  of  art  things, 
confectionery,  artificial  flowers.  The  Genoese  girls  studied  needle- 
work at  night  schools.  The  North  Italians  repudiated  kinship 
with  the  Neapolitans  and  Calabrians.  Italian  workmen  of  the 
unskilled  sort  were  “ everywhere,”  but  that  is  Miss  Adams’  only 
pronouncement  touching  a group  that  was  every  day  becoming 
more  prominent.  One  sentence  was  prophetic:  “ That  the  Ital- 
ians are  an  idle  and  thriftless  people  is  a superstition  that  time 
will  remove  from  the  American  mind.”  3 

Adolfo  Rossi,  who  came  to  the  United  States  in  this  period,  was 
an  adventurous  youth,  with  keen  powers  of  observation  and  a 
capacity  for  vivid,  even  poignant,  narrative.  The  South  Italians 
he  found  to  be  the  dominant  type.  Country  folk  they  had  been  in 

1 Carpi,  ii,  pp.  131,  225-267.  Carpi  followed  a consul’s  lead  in  estimating  at 
55,000  a population  that  the  census  presently  figured  at  17,157.  Even  though  it 
doubtless  included  American-born  children,  the  estimate  was  much  too  high. 

2 Florenzano,  p.  31 1. 

3 C.  Adams,  “ Italian  Life  in  New  York,”  Harper’s  Monthly,  April,  1881,  pp.  676— 
684. 


326  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

Italy  but  now  they  inhabited  the  dirtiest  part  of  New  York  City, 
dwelling  often  more  than  one  family  to  a room.  “ Men,  women, 
dogs,  cats,  and  monkeys  eat  and  sleep  together  in  the  same  hole 
without  air  and  without  light.”  They  buy  stale  beer  at  two  cents 
a pint  from  a rascally  Italian  in  a basement,  and  they  break  into 
endless  brawls.  During  the  summer  they  work  on  the  railroads 
and  in  the  fields;  “ in  the  winter  they  return  to  fill  the  streets  of 
New  York,  where  the  boys  are  bootblacks  and  the  men  either  are 
employed  at  the  most  repulsive  tasks,  scorned  by  workmen  of 
other  nationalities  — carrying  offal  to  the  ships  and  dumping  it  in 
the  sea,  cleaning  the  sewers  et  similia  — or  they  go  about  with 
sacks  on  their  shoulders  rummaging  the  garbage  cans,  gleaning 
paper,  rags,  bones,  broken  glass.”  The  Five  Points  are  the  center 
of  that  species  of  slavery  exercised  by  Italian  bosses  or  padroni. 
These  fellows  know  English,  hire  workmen  in  herds  (being  paid 
by  the  employers),  charge  them  enormous  commissions,  having 
already  advanced  to  many  their  passage  money  for  the  journey 
from  Italy,  sell  them  the  necessaries  at  high  prices,  and  deduct 
heavy  commissions  from  the  savings  which  they  transmit  to  Italy. 
“ And  while  the  workmen  fag  from  morning  to  evening,  the  bosses 
smoke  tranquilly  and  superintend  them  with  rifles  at  their  sides 
and  revolvers  at  their  belts.  They  seem  — and  are  — real 
brigands.”  Whoever  tells  these  natives  of  Avellino,  of  the 
Abruzzi,of  Basilicata,  that  they  are  being  cheated,  loses  his  words. 
“ Signor ino,”  they  reply,  “ we  are  ignorant  and  do  not  know 
English.  Our  boss  brought  us  here,  knows  where  to  find  wrork, 
makes  contracts  with  the  companies.  What  should  we  do  with- 
out him  ? ” The  Camorra  flourishes  as  in  the  worst  Bourbon 
times  and  “ the  Italian,  illiterate,  carrying  the  knife,  defrauded 
and  fraudulent,  is  more  despised  than  the  Irish  and  the  Chinese.” 
Rossi  made  a journey  across  the  continent  with  a squad  of  Ital- 
ians, two-thirds  of  them  from  the  South,  who  were  engaged  in 
New  York  by  the  Denver  and  South  Park  Railway.  To  them  fell 
the  gang  tasks  while  the  Irish  and  the  Americans  wielded  au- 
thority.1 

1 A.  Rossi,  Un  italiano  in  America  (3d  ed.,  Treviso,  1907).  My  citations  are 
drawn  more  especially  from  pp.  65-71,  So,  217  ff.,  301.  Comparison  with  Jacob 


UNITED  STATES.  COMING  OF  THE  ITALIANS  327 

By  1880  the  formative  years  of  Italian  immigration  may  be  said 
to  have  been  completed.  Then  its  main  characteristics  were  ap- 
parent. It  was  largely  from  South  Italy,  was  increasingly  dis- 
posed after  a time  to  return  to  Europe,  had  taken  up  a certain 
range  of  vocations  in  the  United  States,  and  had  developed  the 
institution  of  the  padrone,  unknown  previously  among  immigrant 
peoples.  In  later  years  no  new  elements  appear,  but  the  old 
assume  many  forms,  of  deep  significance.  If  some  of  the  newer 
immigrants  came  while  yet  the  country  had  a frontier,  it  retreated 
westward  before  they  could  reach  it.  A heavy  immigration  after 
1880  left  a population  of  182,580  in  1890.  Henceforth,  those 
who  came  were  to  find  a full-grown  nation,  with  all  good  lands 
preempted. 

In  1900  the  Italians  were  a population  of  484,027,  or  nearly 
three  times  their  number  of  ten  years  before.  This  increase  is 
impressive,  not  only  because  it  was  exceptional,  but  because  it 
took  place  during  a period  disturbed  by  industrial  collapse.  It 
is  partly  explained  by  the  fact  that  in  South  Italy  the  decade  had 
been  one  of  intensified  hardship  and  of  desperate  desire  to  escape. 
But  why  should  the  South  Italians  come  to  the  United  States  ? 
Perhaps  the  knowledge  prevailed  that  South  America  was  the 
hunting  ground  of  the  North  Italians;  more  likely,  it  seemed  most 
natural  to  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  those  South  Italians  who  had 
done  well  in  the  United  States.  Whatever  the  reason,  the  influx 
was  heavy. 

In  1900-10,  years  of  prodigious  industrial  expansion  in  the 
United  States,  2,104,309  Italians  arrived.  So  many,  however, 
had  gone  home  again  that  the  enumeration  of  1910  found  only 
1,343,125.  But  these  were  nearly  three  times  the  number  present 
a decade  earlier.  Having  been  less  than  5 per  cent  of  the  foreign 
population,  they  had  become  10.  Together  with  their  American- 
born  children  they  now  numbered  2,098,360.  Their  stock  had 
increased  faster  since  1900  than  that  of  any  other  large  group, 
except  the  Russians.  Among  the  foreign-born  Italians  two  in 
three  were  men,  a proportion  not  nearly  approached  by  any  other 

Riis’  picture  in  How  the  Other  Half  Lives  (New  York,  1S90),  chs.  v-vii,  suggests  that 
no  advance  had  taken  place  in  ten  years  either  in  occupation  or  mode  of  living. 


328 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


important  group  in  the  country,  and  reflecting  better  than  any 
other  circumstance  the  fact  that  they  had  come  to  earn.1 

After  the  initial  stage  of  settlement  of  any  immigrant  nation- 
ality at  its  chosen  destinations,  some  scattering,  however  gradual, 
invariably  ensues.  Thus  one  expects  subsequent  censuses  to  show 
less  geographical  concentration.  As  the  Italian  immigration, 
however,  increased  in  volume  and  the  predominance  of  the  South- 
ern element  became  greater,  its  concentration  became  actually 
more  marked.  In  1850  just  half  the  Italians  were  within  the  area 
included  in  the  census  of  1790,  but  in  1900  three-quarters  were.2 
And  in  1910  they  were  distributed  as  follows,  in  the  several  groups 
of  states : 


New  England 

. . .13.2% 

East  South  Central  . . . . 

• ■ ■ 0.7% 

Middle  Atlantic 

...58.6 

West  South  Central.  . . . 

...  3.0 

East  North  Central . . . . 

...  10.8 

Mountain 

...  2.4 

West  North  Central  . . . 

...  2.6 

Pacific 

South  Atlantic 

It  is  a strange  result.3  In  the  state  of  New  York  were  about 
as  many  Italians  as  the  whole  country  had  contained  ten  years 
earlier.  Two  out  of  five  of  all  the  newcomers,  in  some  recent 
years,  have  gone  thither.  Of  those  in  the  state  in  1910,  nearly 
two-thirds  dwelt  in  its  metropolis,  340,770  — such  a number  as 
would  make  one  of  the  largest  cities  in  Italy;  and  if  their  children 
were  added,  the  colony  would  exceed  in  population  every  Italian 
city,  except  possibly  Naples.  No  two  cities  of  Basilicata  to- 

1 The  statistical  data  for  these  observations,  and  those  that  follow,  are  avail- 
able in  Thirteenth  Census  — Abstract  of  the  Census  (Washington,  1913). 

2 The  percentages  are  49.6  and  74.9.  In  the  New  England  states,  in  1830,  were 

7.2  of  all  the  Italians,  in  1900,  12.7.  In  the  Middle  States  the  percentages  were 

28.2  and  60.3;  and  in  the  Southern,  14.2  and  2.0.  Bureau  of  the  Census,  A Century 
of  Population  Growth,  iygo-igoo  (Washington,  1909),  p.  131. 

3 In  the  states  where  the  Italians  chiefly  went,  they  numbered  in  1910:  — 


New  York 

. 472,201 

Michigan 

l6,86l 

Oregon 

5.538 

Pennsylvania. . . . 

. 196,122 

Colorado 

■ ■ 14,375 

Vermont 

4.594 

New  Jersey 

. 115,446 

Washington .... 

..  I3.I2I 

Florida 

4.538 

Massachusetts. . . 

85,056 

Missouri 

. . 12,984 

Nebraska 

3.799 

Illinois 

72,163 

Minnesota 

9,669 

Kansas 

3.520 

California 

63,615 

Wisconsin 

9,273 

Maine 

3.468 

Connecticut  .... 

56,954 

Texas 

7,190 

Utah 

3.117 

Ohio 

. 41,620 

Maryland 

Delaware 

2.893 

Rhode  Island. . . . 

27,287 

Indiana 

District  of  Columbia 

2,761 

Louisiana 

20,233 

Montana 

6,592 

Alabama 

2,696 

West  Virginia . . . 

17,292 

Iowa 

Oklahoma 

2,564 

UNITED  STATES.  SOME  SPECIALIZED  TYPES  329 


gether,  to  make  but  one  further  illustration,  contain  so  many 
natives  of  that  province  as  does  this  American  city.  And  in 
New  York  no  foreign  people,  save  only  the  Russians,  are  so 
strongly  represented. 

In  New  Orleans,  in  1910,  the  Italians  exceeded  all  other  for- 
eigners. But  in  no  other  large  city  except  New  York  were  they 
either  first  or  second  in  rank  among  the  immigrants.  Phila- 
delphia and  Chicago  each  had  about  45,000,  Boston  had  31,000  — 
subsequently  (by  the  Massachusetts  census  of  1915)  43,000. 
Newark  in  1910  had  20,000,  San  Francisco  17,000.  The  other 
large  centers  were,  in  order,  Pittsburgh,  Jersey  City,  Buffalo, 
Cleveland,  New  Orleans,  St.  Louis,  Detroit,  Baltimore.  About 
four-fifths  of  all  the  Italians  were  classed  by  the  census  as  urban, 
twice  as  high  a proportion  as  that  for  the  country’s  population  as 
a whole. 

The  emigration  of  Italians  into  the  countries  of  Europe  has  for 
the  most  part  been  specialized  according  to  the  understood  re- 
quirements of  those  countries.  That  into  Brazil  and  Argentina 
has  aimed  either  to  fulfill  a need  or  to  take  advantage  of  unex- 
ploited resources  and  opportunities.  What  likelihood  has  there 
been  that  the  great  outpouring  from  South  Italy  would  find  itself 
suited  to  the  conditions  of  the  United  States  ? By  what  occupa- 
tions have  the  immigrants  tried  to  earn  a living  ? And  what  has 
been  their  accomplishment  ? 

That  some  notion  of  fitness  to  prosper  in  the  future  articulately 
or  inarticulately  precedes  the  decision  to  emigrate,  might  be  in- 
ferred from  the  action  of  that  “ professional  proletariat  ” which 
so  abounds  in  Italy.  Because  of  the  language  barrier  and  the 
specialized  nature  of  their  training,  such  persons  can  ordinarily 
expect  to  serve  only  their  fellow  countrymen.  Hence  they  have 
been  few,  relatively  far  fewer  than  among  immigrants  from  Eng- 
lish-speaking countries  or  from  those  nearer  to  the  United 
States  in  institutions  and  ways. 

To  this  rule  there  has  been  one  very  notable  exception.  With 
the  musicians,  training,  where  it  exists,  is  of  advantage,  and 
language  does  not  matter  since  their  art  is  universal.  Training 


330 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


may  indeed  be  absent;  and  if  there  is  only  an  inborn  love  of 
music  and  the  impulse  to  play,  then  the  organetto  and  the  tam- 
bourine, the  resonant  voice  and  the  rhythmic  legs,  contribute  all 
that  is  needful.  Gains  do  not  depend  upon  length  of  residence  in 
America;  a too  facile  assimilation  to  established  ways  may  even 
make  profit  less  easy.  So  it  happens  that  musicians  have  been 
plentiful  among  these  immigrants,  constituting  about  half  of  all 
Italian  professional  persons  in  the  United  States.  With  the  lapse 
of  time,  they  have  undergone  some  changes.  In  city  and  suburb 
the  hurdy-gurdy  has  displaced  the  harp,  violin,  and  old-time  hand 
organ.  The  street  types  as  such  are  less  than  they  once  were,  and 
the  band  players  in  the  great  cities  more.  But  all  together, 
humble  types,  high,  and  highest,  they  contend  for  the  primacy  in 
numbers  among  foreign  musicians. 

Less  favorably  circumstanced,  the  physicians,  lawyers,  teach- 
ers, actors,  priests,  and  their  kin  have  had  to  contemplate  taking 
one  of  two  courses.  Either  they  must  settle  in  some  “ Little 
Italy  ” or  an  isolated  cluster  of  Italians  anywhere,  or  they  must 
sink  into  unskilled  work.  Let  such  persons  avoid  this  country,  an 
Italian  consul-general  at  New  York  recommended  a quarter  cen- 
tury ago.  “ Hardly  have  they  landed  when  they  discover  that 
America  is  not  for  them.  Wanting  knowledge  of  the  language, 
and  every  other  resource,  they  come  to  the  consulate  to  ask  succor 
in  repatriation.  How  many  think  themselves  lucky  if  they  can 
find  employment  as  waiters  on  board  a vessel  bound  for  Italy!”1 
A colony  must  have  attained  a certain  size  and  stability  before  it 
can  maintain  a priest.  Teachers  may  find  posts  in  parochial 
schools.  Doctors,  when  they  have  duly  passed  examinations  or 
had  their  diplomas  validated,  can  still  only  secure  a patronage 
among  their  compatriots.  On  the  other  hand,  where  the  demand 
is  meager,  the  supply  may  also  be  meager.  Among  a thousand 
Italians  in  Richmond  in  1909  there  was  said  to  be  not  one  pro- 
fessional person.2  And  in  1882,  when  the  first  Italian  daily  paper 

1 G.  P.  Riva  in  Emig.  e Col.,  1893,  p.  438.  Cf.,  on  the  same  period,  G.  Conte, 
Died  anni  in  America  (Palermo,  1903),  pp.  58-61. 

2 L.  Villari,  “ Gli  italiani  negli  stati  di  Virginia,  Carolina  del  Nord  e Carolina 
del  Sud,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1909,  No.  8,  p.  58. 


UNITED  STATES.  SOME  SPECIALIZED  TYPES  33  I 


was  started,  “ not  only,”  says  Rossi,  its  first  news-gatherer,  “ were 
there  in  New  York  no  Italian  reporters  by  vocation,  but  it  was 
extremely  hard  even  to  find  an  Italian  who  could  write  his  own 
tongue  with  accuracy.”  1 The  consuls  have  not  ceased  to  dis- 
courage professional  immigration.  In  the  most  prosperous  epoch 
of  the  Italian  coming,  the  Labor  Information  Office,  with  its  seat 
in  New  York,  said  of  teachers,  under-officials,  accountants,  and 
others  in  liberal  professions:  “ All  of  them  meet  bitter  disillusion- 
ment and  are  often  forced  to  take  up  humble  and  arduous  occupa- 
tions, not  always  well  paid.”  2 Despite  many  fluctuations  a 
persistent  decrease  in  the  professional  element  has  taken  place. 
In  the  immigration  of  1910  it  had  relatively  only  one-fifteenth  the 
importance  it  had  had  in  1875. 

A vastly  broader  place  has  been  occupied  by  those  who  are  con- 
veniently styled  skilled  workmen  and  by  certain  types  that  have 
successfully  defied  our  statisticians’  capacity  in  classification  and 
been  dubbed  “ miscellaneous.”  These  together  have  not  neces- 
sarily either  more  intelligence  and  skill  or  less  than  the  profes- 
sional immigrants ; but  they  satisfy  different  wants : they  provide 
generally  the  material  things  of  fife  and  the  physical  services,  and 
if  they  touch  aesthetic  or  liberal  interests  at  all  it  is  incidentally. 

The  proportion  of  skilled  workmen  — leaving  aside  for  the 
moment  the  miscellaneous  group  — has  risen  appreciably  in  the 
last  thirty  or  forty  years,  and  recently  has  been  about  an  eighth  of 
all.3  The  percentage  is  lower  than  that  of  the  immigrants  from 
western  Europe  — the  Germans,  Irish,  English,  Scotch,  Scandi- 
navians, French— but  is  much  higher  than  that  of  the  Croatians 
and  Slavonians,  the  Slovaks,  Lithuanians,  Magyars,  and  Balkan 
peoples.  One  recalls  that  North  Italian  skilled  emigrants  have 
played  some  part  in  the  countries  from  which  these  eastern  immi- 

1 Rossi,  p.  170. 

2 Note  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1907,  No.  2,  p.  116.  Cf.  Boll.  Emig.,  almost  at  random, 
e.g.,  1903,  No.  4,  p.  47;  No.  5,  p.  43;  No.  11,  p.  12;  also  G.  Preziosi,  GV  italiani 
negli  Stati  Uniti  del  Nord  (Milan,  1909),  p.  40. 

3 By  quinquennia,  beginning  with  1876-80  and  ending  with  1906-10,  the  per- 
centages were  7,  9,  6,  8,  14,  13,  n.  Since  no  figures  are  to  be  had  for  1896,  I have 
made  the  fifth  period  cover  four  years  only. 


332 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


grants  come.  Yet  our  Italians  are  of  the  South,  where  skill  is  less 
than  in  the  North;  hence  the  proportion  of  skilled  among  them 
approaches  more  nearly  the  low  ratios  of  the  eastern  peoples  of 
Europe  than  of  the  western,  and  it  has  actually,  in  most  years, 
been  less  than  the  proportion  for  all  immigrant  nationalities 
together. 

What  is  peculiar  in  the  Italian  contingent  can  be  brought  out 
by  some  simple  comparisons.  In  1907,  for  example  (a  year  when 
the  immigration  from  all  countries  was  very  heavy,  and  when  that 
from  Italy  was  one-fourth  of  the  total,  and  when  Italian  skilled 
workers  were  a fifth  of  all  skilled  immigrants),  Italian  plumbers 
were  one  in  150  arriving  plumbers,  locksmiths  one  in  74  of  their 
kind,  milliners  one  in  48,  painters  and  glaziers  one  in  16,  clerks 
and  accountants  one  in  23,  plasterers  one  in  26,  saddlers  one  in  18, 
machinists  one  in  38,  tailors  one  in  8.  Extremely  few  likewise 
were  the  butchers,  bookbinders,  iron  and  steel  and  other  metal 
workers,  hat  makers,  woodworkers,  and  wheelwrights.  And 
generally  these  immigrants  originated  in  North  Italy.1  In  a dif- 
ferent group  of  occupations,  the  Italians  have  been  much  more 
numerous.  Of  blacksmiths,  bakers,  millers,  in  some  years  miners, 
their  representation  has  been  near  the  average  for  all  peoples.  It 
fell  but  little  below  such  an  average  in  1907  in  the  case  of  cabinet- 
makers, carpenters,  dressmakers,  gardeners,  and  metal  workers 
(other  than  in  iron  and  steel),  but  in  some  years  has  exceeded  the 
average. 

The  peculiarities  of  representation  are  in  no  sense  fortuitous. 
In  one  or  two  instances,  the  grounds  are  wanting  for  such  heavy 
emigration  as  other  countries  show.  Tailors  and  locksmiths  seem 
few  chiefly  because  in  the  Russian  Jewish  exodus  they  abound  — 
the  consequence  of  centuries  of  trade  specialization.  In  some 
occupations  language  creates  a difficulty.  Others  have  in  Italy 
had  no  material  basis  for  growth;  hence,  iron  and  steel  workers, 
for  example,  come  rather  from  Germany  and  England.  Since 
bakers  and  carpenters  exercise  trades  as  universal  as  they  are 

1 The  figures  are  compiled  from  statistics  in  the  Report  of  the  Commissioner- 
General  of  Immigration  for  the  Fiscal  Year  igo6-igoy,  but  the  reports  for  other 
years  are  of  similar  tenor. 


UNITED  STATES.  SOME  SPECIALIZED  TYPES  333 


ancient,  nothing  in  the  Italian  rate  of  their  coming  is  character- 
istic. Miners  are  mainly  from  North  Italy,  where  their  history 
has  been  long. 

Unique  interest  attaches  to  those  trades  in  which  the  Italian 
representation  is  high.  Here  fall  the  stonecutters,  mechanics, 
mariners,  masons,  barbers,  seamstresses,  and  shoemakers.  Com- 
monly one-half  or  more  of  all  arriving  masons  are  Italian,  and  in 
some  years  a third  to  a half  of  all  the  stonecutters.  In  deforested 
Italy,  with  its  rocky  vertebrae  of  Alps  and  Apennines,  stone  and 
cement  are  used  to  an  exceptional  degree  in  building.  It  is  the 
countries  from  which  in  general  many  skilled  workmen  come  — 
Germany,  Great  Britain,  Scandinavia  — and  not  the  eastern 
countries,  that  chiefly  rival  Italy  in  sending  masons  and  stone- 
cutters. Mariners  have  always  been  numerous  — the  Genoese 
maintain  an  old  tradition.  Were  the  Hebrew  seamstresses  ex- 
cluded, the  Italian  portion,  now  commonly  a fourth  to  a third  of 
all,  would  rise  substantially.  The  prominence  of  this  type  argues 
at  once  the  Italian  women’s  need  of  earning  and  their  pro- 
ficiency with  an  implement  universally  manipulated  by  women. 
The  amazingly  heavy  representation  of  shoemakers  reflects  the 
persistence  in  South  Italy  of  a traditional  village  craftsman,  work- 
ing by  hand.  In  the  United  States,  the  calzolaio  must  change. 
Strangest  of  all,  Italian  barbers  and  hairdressers  are  actually 
one-half  to  two-thirds  of  all  arrivals  of  such  workmen!  Indeed, 
these  artists  have  long  stood  forth  prominently  in  our  immigra- 
tion from  Italy  and  over  many  years  have  increased  in  number. 
They  derive  largely  from  South  Italy,  where  in  truth  men’s  beards 
grow  heavy  and  where  the  narrow  range  of  possible  employments 
has  made  for  concentration  in  the  standard  sorts. 

Consider  some  other  types.  Italian  fishermen  are  often  half  of 
those  who  come  from  all  countries;  for  Italy  is  bordered  by  fish- 
abounding  seas,  supplying,  in  a country  where  meat  is  expensive, 
one  of  the  most  valued  of  foods.  Draymen,  teamsters,  and  their 
allies  are  often  a third  to  a half  of  all  who  come ; for  Italy  is  a land 
of  few  railroads  and  fewer  navigable  streams.  Did  not  England 
and  Germany,  and  still  more  the  Jewish  populations  of  central 
Europe,  send  extraordinary  numbers  of  merchants  and  dealers, 


334 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


those  that  flock  from  the  simple  communities  of  South  Italy,  the 
more  numerous  because  of  the  small  scale  of  their  operations, 
would  eminently  stand  forth.  Many  immigrants  have  been  serv- 
ants at  home,  but  their  general  proportion  in  the  whole  shrivels 
because  very  great  numbers  have  come  from  two  or  three  other 
countries.  In  particular,  there  have  been  many  farm  servants. 
Farmers,  finally,  that  is,  persons  who  have  had  an  independent 
position  in  agriculture  and  have  not  been  mainly  hired  by  others, 
have  been  few.  From  Germany,  in  the  days  of  her  great  emigra- 
tion, which  was  yet  materially  inferior  to  that  from  Italy  in  recent 
years,  five  to  ten  times  as  many  farmers  came  annually  as  have 
come  from  Italy  in  the  years  of  amplest  immigration;  and  even 
several  other  western  countries  have  sent  more.  In  late  years 
while  immigration  from  these  countries  has  been  dwindling, 
their  farmers  have  still  exceeded  or  have  nearly  equalled  those 
from  Italy.  For  this  strange  situation  the  explanation  is  first  of 
all  that  the  innumerable  Italian  proprietors  of  farm  land  have 
also  been  laborers;  and  at  one  time  it  was  true  that  our  officials 
did  not  carefully  distinguish  farmers  from  farm  laborers. 

Passing  by  for  the  moment  the  more  purely  industrial  types, 
let  us  scan  more  closely  the  careers  of  the  rest.  In  part  these 
people  work  for  wages,  in  part  they  are  made  independent,  each 
man  a center  unto  himself,  by  the  circumstances  of  their  trade. 
Training  and  apprenticeship  may  be  necessary  for  some,  for 
others  reliance  is  mainly  on  personal  resources,  even  upon  quali- 
ties that  one  is  encouraged  to  call  social. 

The  bootblacks,  humblest  of  all,  have  not,  save  in  rare  in- 
stances, plied  their  trade  in  Italy.  But  they  found  it  open  to 
them  here  (or  occupied  mainly  by  negroes)  and  they  brought  to  it 
a pride  in  neat  work  which  is  in  some  sense  a national  attribute. 
In  goodly  numbers  they  entered  the  trade  very  early,  at  the  time 
in  fact  when  the  street  musicians,  with  their  bears  and  monkeys, 
and  the  rag  pickers,  were  still  the  conspicuous  types;  and  they 
were  one  in  sixteen  of  all  bootblacks  counted  five  years  after  the 
Civil  War  had  ended.1  Twenty  years  later,  in  those  quarters  of 

1 Ninth  Census,  iii,  p.  833;  later  censuses  have  ignored  their  vocation. 


UNITED  STATES.  SOME  SPECIALIZED  TYPES  335 


New  York  where  the  foreign  population  dwelt,  473  out  of  the  474 
foreign  bootblacks  enumerated  were  Italians  — and  the  native 
workers  numbered  10 ! 1 Subsequently,  though  no  statistics  exist, 
the  frequent  references  to  their  kind  in  Italian  consular  reports 
fortify  the  opinion  that  in  the  cities  they  were  exceedingly  nu- 
merous.2 Especially  in  early  days  they  patrolled  the  streets, 
carrying  their  implements;  but  the  evolution  of  their  industry 
has  brought  to  the  fore  the  chair  and  stand,  sometimes  the  shop, 
whose  owner  now  and  then  is  self-styled  “ professor  ” or  “ artist.” 
In  New  Orleans,  they  appear  to  have  outgrown  their  trade  some 
years  ago,  being  superseded  by  negroes.3  In  the  great  eastern 
cities,  Greeks,  Jews,  and  others  have  cut  into  their  dominance. 
This  is  not  surprising,  for  while  men  past  middle  life  often  are 
bootblacks,  the  majority  are  youths,  who  expect  to  turn  to  other 
things. 

Of  the  barbers  and  hairdressers,  few  abandon  their  vocation 
here,  while  many  for  the  first  time  enter  it.  In  1870  only  the 
French  had  a higher  proportion  of  barbers.4  In  1890,  when  the 
Italian  population  was  still  small,  the  actual  number  of  Italian 
barbers  exceeded  the  total  of  British,  Irish,  Scandinavian,  and 
French,  and  was  nearly  a third  the  number  of  all  German  barbers, 
although  German  workpeople  in  general  were  twelve  times  as 
many  as  Italian.5  In  1900,  the  12,289  Italian  barbers  were  half 

1 Seventh  Special  Report  of  the  United  States  Commission  of  Labor,  The 
Slums  of  Baltimore,  Chicago,  Neiv  York,  and  Philadelphia  (Washington,  1894), 
pp.  188  f. 

2 The  following  references  touch  different  parts  of  this  country  and  Canada.  V. 
Manassero  di  Castigliole,  Emig.  e Col.,  1893,  p.  451;  G.  Marazzi , ibid.,  p.  478; 
A.  Dali’  Aste  Brandolini,  “ L’immigrazione  e le  colonie  italiane  nella  Pennsyl- 
vania,” Boll.  Emig.,  1902,  No.  4,  p.  6z;  R.  Michele,  “ L’immigrazione  italiana  in 
. . . Connecticut,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1902,  No.  5,  p.  11;  G.  P.  Baccelli,  “ Gl’  italiani  in 
. . . Albany,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1902,  No.  5,  p.  16;  Serra,  “Gl’  italiani  in  California  ed 
in  altri  stati  della  costa  del  Pacifico,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1902,  No.  3,  pp.  45,  51;  E.  Rossi, 
“ Delle  condizioni  del  Canada  rispetto  all’  immigrazione  italiana,”  Boll.  Emig., 
1903,  No.  4,  p.  9;  L.  Villari,  “ L’emigrazione  italiana  nel  distretto  consolare  di 
Filadelfia,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1908,  No.  16,  p.  26. 

3 G.  Saint-Martin,  “ Gli  italiani  nel  distretto  consolare  di  Nuova  Orleans,”  Boll. 
Emig.,  1903,  No.  1,  p.  12. 

4 Ninth  Census,  loc.  cit. 

6 Eleventh  Census,  ii,  p.  485.  Among  the  Irish,  barbers  were  amazingly  few  — 
one  in  a thousand  occupied  males;  among  the  Italians  one  in  thirty-four. 


336  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

as  many  as  the  Germans;  they  were  one  in  twenty-five  occupied 
males  — a rate  nine  times  as  great  as  that  for  the  entire  country.1 
In  New  York  today  they  may  be  nearly  as  numerous  as  all  other 
barbers  together.  Before  their  numbers  and  their  proficiency  the 
negroes  and  Germans  have  in  many  centers  lost  command  of  the 
trade.2 

Figaro  must  learn  American  styles  of  hair  cutting  and  the  use 
of  American  instruments.  That  is  not  difficult.  The  system  by 
which  in  Italy  customers  often  pay  by  contract  is  rare  in  this 
country,  a less  personal  relationship  being  the  rule.  In  the  great 
cities  the  barber  patronizes  one  of  the  numerous  towel  supply 
houses  (often  Italian)  instead  of  washing  his  towels  himself. 
Quick  fingers  and  a sense  of  neatness  and  finish  are  dependable 
natural  assets  which  he  brings  with  him.  American  requirements 
and  a bit  of  English,  the  fresh  immigrant  learns  in  an  established 
shop.  Presently  his  wage  is  $9-14  per  week.  What  his  next  and 
final  fortune  will  be  depends  on  his  skill  and  his  proficiency  in 
English.  Innumerable  are  the  one-chair  or  two-chair  shops  using 
a basement  or  narrow  room,  serving  mainly  Italian  or  other 
immigrants,  and  charging  rates  much  lower  than  those  of  the 
established  shops,  whether  union  or  non-union.  In  the  more 
flourishing  concerns  six  or  eight  competent  men  are  employed; 
and  the  ablest  of  all  can  count  on  being  welcomed  in  the  great 
hotels. 

Italian  shoemakers  and  shoe  repairers  were  found  to  be  very 
numerous  both  in  1870  and  1890.  In  1870  the  Germans  were 
relatively  much  more  numerous,  but  in  1900,  after  the  great 
South  Italian  influx,  their  proportion  was  only  a third  that  of  the 
Italians.3  Makers  of  shoes  though  they  had  been  in  Italy,  they 
became  in  this  land  of  machine-made  shoes  chiefly  repairers,  in- 
vading the  patronage  of  others.  Many  of  the  residents  of  our 

1 Twelfth  Census,  Special  Report  on  Occitpations,  pp.  ccii,  65.  The  Thirteenth 
Census  unfortunately  did  not  give  occupational  statistics  by  nationality. 

2 Cf.  New  York,  Report  of  the  Commission  on  Immigration  (Albany,  1909), 
p.  134;  J.  Daniels,  In  Freedom's  Birthplace  (Boston,  etc.,  1914),  p.  324;  F.  G. 
Warne,  The  Immigrant  Invasion  (New  York,  1913,)  p.  174. 

* Twelfth  Census,  Report  on  Occupations,  loc.  cit.  I shall  not,  in  the  remainder  of 
this  account,  detail  my  references  to  the  Ninth,  Eleventh,  and  Twelfth  censuses. 


UNITED  STATES.  SOME  SPECIALIZED  TYPES  337 


cities  have  beheld  the  German  repair  shop  disappear  — through 
the  death  of  the  cobbler  or  transformation  by  his  children  into  a 
store  — and  the  Italian,  humbly  beginning,  take  its  place.  More, 
apparently,  than  the  barbers,  the  shoemakers  have  courted  a 
general  patronage,  reaching  out  into  the  suburbs  and  into  parts  of 
cities  where  Italians  are  scarce,  and  managing  their  affairs  with 
the  barest  knowledge  of  English.  In  one  person  or  in  one  family 
bootblack  and  shoemaker  may  be  united.  Expensive  machinery 
is  sometimes  used,  electrically  propelled.  But  the  Italians  who 
have  successfully  undertaken  the  general  sale  of  boots  and  shoes 
are  still  few. 

Traders  and  dealers,  like  barbers  and  cobblers,  have  not  been 
wont  to  abandon  their  vocations  after  arrival.  As  early  as  1870, 
dealers  in  groceries,  wines,  liquors,  and  other  commodities,  and 
hucksters,  were  one  in  nine  of  all  occupied  Italians.  Then  the 
Italian  consul-general  estimated,  I suspect  rather  liberally,  that 
in  New  York  three-fifths  of  all  street  sellers  of  peaches  and  pears 
— or  in  the  winter,  of  apples  and  chestnuts  — were  Genoese  or 
Sicilian;  and  in  the  larger  and  stabler  forms  of  trade,  some  con- 
siderable fortunes  were  said  to  be  in  the  making.1  Twenty  years 
later  there  were  over  10,000  dealers.  As  hucksters  and  pedlars, 
only  the  German  and  Russian  Jews  were  more  numerous.  Many 
were  wholesalers,  and  a goodly  number,  for  the  most  part  Sicil- 
ians, imported  lemons  and  other  fruits  and  wine.  In  1892  the 
consul-general  in  New  York  reported  to  his  government  that 
Italians  owned  most  of  the  fruit  stands  in  the  metropolis  and  ran 
them  profitably;  in  Boston  also  were  many.  In  the  Far  West, 
during  the  period  of  the  gold  excitement,  the  dealers  had  more 
success  trading  in  the  camps  than  their  brethren  had  digging  in 
the  mines.  Subsequently  they  rose  to  considerable  importance  in 
San  Francisco  and  elsewhere  in  the  coast  states,  selling  wines  and 
liquors,  groceries,  fruits,  and  vegetables  — in  the  last  two  depart- 
ments, apparently  unrivalled.  In  New  Orleans,  long  a center  for 
trade  with  Sicily,  the  Sicilians  had  achieved  a leading  position  in 
the  sale  of  fruit,  vegetables,  and  oysters.  In  part  their  specialty 

1 Carpi,  ii,  p.  231. 


33§ 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


grew  out  of  their  prior  employment,  as  seamen  and  longshoremen, 
in  unloading  fruit  from  Italian  sailing  vessels.  In  the  face  of  the 
operations  of  the  United  Fruit  Company,  the  Italian  shipping  was 
destined  to  decline,  but  the  retail  trade  was  to  continue  long  in 
Italian  hands.  In  Texas,  Alabama,  and  Mississippi,  in  Colorado 
and  the  adjacent  parts,  and  in  the  Central  States,  sellers  of  fruit 
and  other  commodities  were  reported  to  be  numerous  in  the 
nineties.1 

The  new  century  has  brought  a still  more  extensive  field  of 
operations,  with  substantial  outposts  even  in  Canada,  and  has  set 
the  general  characteristics  of  Italian  trade  into  sharper  relief.  In 
1900,  retail  dealers  numbered  17,640,  wholesale  dealers  369, 
hucksters  and  pedlars  7209  — with  the  German  and  Russian 
Jews  in  relatively  much  the  same  position  as  ten  years  earlier. 
The  tremendous  increment  of  the  immigrant  population  since 
1900,  all  unmeasured  statistically  as  to  occupation,  has  certainly 
boosted  the  Italian  participation  in  trade.  For  we  must  remem- 
ber that  many  general  laborers,  miners,  and  others  are  tempted  to 
enter  “ bisinisse,”  and  that  they  can  do  so  by  learning  fifty  words 
of  English  and  buying  a fruit  stand.  Sometimes  the  wife  manages 
the  shop  or  stand  while  the  husband  continues  at  his  work.  In 
New  York  many  men  have  begun  with  a pushcart,  then  got  the 
privilege  of  a stand,  then  a concession  to  sell  garden  produce  in 
connection  with  a grocery  store,  and  finally  have  set  up  a shop  of 
their  own.2  In  small  towns  and  at  railroad  stations  many  Italian 
fruit  stands  are  now  to  be  found.  The  Italians’  love  of  their  trade, 
bringing  an  eagerness  to  have  fresh  fruits  and  to  display  them  in 
comely  arrangements,  has  undoubtedly  somewhat  stimulated  the 
fruit  consumption  of  the  American  people.  In  recent  years,  the 

1 See  the  reports  in  Emig.  e Col.,  1893,  pp.  442,  449-453,  462,  464,  475-479. 
Note  the  prominence  of  dealers  in  the  directory  of  Fratelli  Metelli,  Guida  Metelli 
della  colonia  italiana  negli  Stati  Uniti  per  I’anno  1883  (New  York,  1S84),  pp. 
265-311.  See  also  C.  Ottolenghi,  “La  nuova  fase  dell’  immigrazione  del  lavoro 
agli  Stati  Uniti,”  Giornale  degli  Economisti,  April,  1899,  p.  381;  Saint-Martin, 

p.  4. 

2 H.  B.  Woolston,  A Study  of  the  Population  of  M anhaltanville  (New  York, 
1909),  p.  94- 


UNITED  STATES.  SOME  SPECIALIZED  TYPES  339 

Greeks  and  Syrians  — the  latter  already  met  as  competitors  in 
Brazil  — have  challenged  the  Italian  dominance  in  the  fruit 
trade,  not  merely  in  New  York,  but  as  far  away  as  Galveston. 

A common  type  in  our  foreign  communities  is  the  coal  and  wood 
or  coal  and  ice  dealer,  observed  half  a century  ago  in  San  Fran- 
cisco. In  some  places  he  has  been  the  successor  of  the  Jews,  as 
these  have  succeeded  the  Irish.  The  business  is  simple  enough: 
one  rents  an  unused  basement,  constructs  crudely  in  the  rear  a 
bin  or  bunk,  then  hangs  out  a sign  or  peddles  small  portions  in 
the  tenements. 

In  the  specifically  Italian  districts  are  many  shops  providing 
a single  class  of  wares,  such  as  Italians  are  likely  to  seek.  Nothing 
sells  so  well  as  food.  A sufficiently  modest  shop  is  styled,  in  Italo- 
English,  a “ grande  grosseria  italiana.”  Here  a window  displays 
voluminous  round  cheeses,  or  strings  of  sausages,  or  tinned  eels; 
there  are  loaves  of  bread  thirty  inches  from  end  to  end,  or  great 
round  loaves  with  holes  in  the  center  like  gigantic  doughnuts. 
Confetti  or  macaroni  tempts  one  in  another  window.  Dealers  in 
alcoholic  and  soft  drinks  are  many.  Here,  in  combination,  are  a 
“caffe  e pasticceria,”  there  a bank  sells  coal.  Some  shops  become 
so  diversified  as  to  approach  the  “ general  merchandise  ” stores 
of  our  rural  districts.  Capitalizing  the  timidity  which  the  Italian 
often  shows  about  trusting  many  people  with  his  affairs,  a ver- 
satile fellow  will  be  at  once  a barber,  banker,  undertaker,  whole- 
sale and  retail  dealer,  perhaps  also  a real  estate  and  employment 
agent  — yet  even  such  a grotesque  association  of  activities  can 
hardly  be  incomprehensible  to  American  patrons  of  tourists’ 
agencies  abroad ! 

Powerful  firms  and  individuals  have  arisen.  New  York, 
Chicago,  and  San  Francisco  have  their  Italian  chambers  of  com- 
merce, composed,  to  an  extraordinary  degree,  of  bankers,  fruit 
and  wine  merchants,  and  importers  of  fruits,  wines,  oil,  and  raw 
silk.  The  heavy  Italian  importations  into  New  York  and  into 
New  Orleans  are  mainly  in  Italian  hands.  In  passing,  it  may  be 
noted  that  the  California  fruit  trade  has  cut  deeply  into  the  trade 
in  Italian  fruits.  Of  the  large  firms  many  are  outgrowths  of  firms 


340 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


previously  successful  in  Italy,  while  others  have  sprung  from  small 
beginnings  here.1 

Other  city  types  are  prominent,  little  less  so  in  the  inland  cen- 
ters than  on  the  seaboard  (east,  south,  and  west).  Sometimes  the 
restaurant  keeper  had  exercised  his  vocation  in  Italy,  but  as  often, 
I suspect,  he  has  first  sold  only  to  customers  who  took  their  pur- 
chase home ; so  wine  merchants  come  to  sell  for  consumption  on 
the  premises.  The  many  cooks,  almost  always  North  Italians, 
were  conspicuous  as  early  as  half  a century  ago.  Genoese,  in  the 
early  days,  and  many  others  recently,  have  been  waiters,  finding 
a haven  often  in  the  largest  hotels.  It  is  not  necessary  that  they 
should  have  learned  their  calling  in  Italy.  Nimble  hands  they 
may  count  upon,  also  such  courtesy  and  deference  as  centuries 
have  wrought  into  their  fiber — centuries  of  abounding  state  and 
religious  ceremony,  maintained  in  an  old  civilization.  Before  the 
influx  of  Italian  and  other  white  waiters,  the  negroes  have  lost 
their  former  prominence.  Confectioners  are  many,  from  northern 
and  central  Italy,  and  bakers  have  been  a leading  South  Italian 
type.  Dressmakers  and  tailors  have  been  innumerable. 

Of  Italian  fishermen  there  has  been  a wide  scattering.  In 
Boston  is  an  old  colony  which  used  to  moor  its  gaudy  craft  along 
time-honored  “ T Wharf.”  At  several  points  in  Florida,  notably 
at  Tampa,  there  have  been  settlements,  the  men  sometimes 
owning  their  ships,  sometimes  manning  those  of  other  persons; 
most  are  from  Sicily,  but  many  are  from  Tuscany  and  the  Marches. 
An  old  colony  — it  can  count  fifty  years  — is  at  New  Orleans. 
The  fishermen  of  Galveston,  who  sell  their  fish  under  contract, 
have  been  chiefly  from  the  isle  of  Elba.  On  the  Pacific  coast  are 
several  collectivities,  one  for  instance  in  Oregon  (Astoria) , but  all 
shrink  in  importance  before  that  at  San  Francisco. 

As  early  as  1870,  the  Italians  were  supplying  much  of  San 
Francisco  and  part  of  the  adjacent  interior  with  fish.  In  the 

1 The  chambers  of  commerce  (subsidized  by  the  Italian  government)  have  issued 
various  publications.  On  trade  see  a contribution  by  G.  Rossati  to  the  compre- 
hensive volume  Gli  italiani  negli  Stati  Uniti  (New  York,  1906),  pp.  54-59;  I have 
drawn  freely  upon  the  consular  reports. 


UNITED  STATES.  SOME  SPECIALIZED  TYPES  341 


early  eighties  it  was  said  that  a majority  of  the  resident  Italians 
were  fishermen  or  fish  merchants.  Generally  they  came  from 
North  Italy,  but  their  successors  have  been  largely  Sicilians. 
About  a third  of  all  the  emigrants  from  Augusta  (province  of 
Syracuse)  have  been  fishermen.  And  they  have  gone  chiefly  to 
California  and  Alaska.  Still  others  of  the  San  Francisco  colony 
have  come  from  the  Isola  delle  Femmine  or  from  the  Sicilian 
settlements  in  Tunisia.  Mending  their  nets  or  returning  with 
their  catch,  they  have  made  a considerable  part  of  San  Francisco 
picturesque  by  their  presence.  Their  industry  was  not  abated 
after  the  earthquake.  On  the  Sacramento  River,  not  far  from  San 
Francisco,  there  is  an  Italian  fishermen’s  town.  Some  1250  a year, 
it  is  said,  go  to  Alaska  for  the  April-September  season,  during 
the  rest  of  the  year  fishing  from  motor  boats  owned  by  them- 
selves or  by  companies.  For  the  Alaska  campaign  they  are  en- 
rolled by  half  a dozen  South  Italian  “ bosses,”  who  make  a pretty 
pile  in  pay  from  the  salmon  companies,  in  commissions  from  the 
fishermen,  and  in  their  profit  on  the  sustenance  they  provide.  The 
fishermen  make  their  catch  with  nets  at  the  mouths  of  the  streams 
on  Kodiak  Island,  in  Bristol  Bay,  and  on  the  west  coast  of  Alaska 
Peninsula,  receiving  for  the  season  $100  in  “ run  money  ” and 
3§  or  4 cents  per  head  of  fish  caught,  say  $450  for  five  months.1 

1 Carpi,  ii,  pp.  132,  223,  237;  Guida  Metelli,  p.  183;  Emig.  e Col.,  1893,  PP-  462, 
464,  47S;  Ottolenghi,  p.  381;  G.  B.  Cafiero,  “ Gli  italiani  nel  distretto  consolare  di 
Nuova  Orleans,  III,  Florida,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1903,  No.  1,  p.  21;  Fara  Forni,  “ GP 
interessi  italiani  nel  distretto  consolare  di  Nuova  Orleans,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1905,  No. 
17,  pp.  6,  16;  G.  Moroni,  “ L’emigrazione  italiana  in  Florida,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1913, 
No.  x,  p.  73;  Corbino,  p.  24;  F.  Daneo,  “I  pescatori  italiani  nell’  Alaska,”  Boll. 
Emig.,  1915,  No.  4,  pp.  39-44;  H.  A.  Fisk,  “The  Fishermen  of  San  Francisco 
Bay,”  in  Proceedings  of  the  Thirty-second  Annual  Conference  of  Charities  and  Cor- 
rection, 1903,  pp.  383-393;  E.  Patrizi,  GV  italiani  in  California  (San  Francisco, 
19 1 1),  passim. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 


UNITED  STATES.  II.  THE  WAGE-EARNING  MAJORITY 

In  a modern  society,  it  is  upon  the  men  engaged  in  the  primary 
operations  of  production,  rather  than  upon  the  retail  traders, 
servant  types,  and  others  that  the  major  risks  of  industry  fall. 
This  the  Italians  have  understood.  Holding  aloof  when  enter- 
prise has  been  slack,  they  have  rushed  forward  in  the  intervals  of 
growth  and  expansion  when  entrepreneurs  have  had  a fever  for 
organization,  when  capital  has  been  freely  offered  and  the  normal 
increase  of  the  country’s  population,  from  its  own  loins,  has  left 
unsated  the  desires  of  the  industrial  leaders  for  labor.  Telltale  evi- 
dence of  their  intention  is  the  heavy  dominance  of  males  and  of 
adults.  The  censuses  have  successively  shown  a proportion  of 
occupied  males  in  total  males  seldom  equalled  in  the  rates 
of  other  immigrants  and  commonly  far  in  excess  of  them.  Not 
less  striking  is  the  fact  that,  in  the  statistics  of  arriving  Italians, 
the  percentage  of  males  has  risen  rapidly  (as  might  be  shown  in  a 
curve)  with  every  pronounced  spurt  in  immigration.1  And  at 
each  resumption  of  the  upswing  the  percentage  of  skilled  work- 
men has  increased,  only  to  decrease  again  afterwards,  as  if  to 
show  their  perception  of  the  fact  that  only  during  a time  of 
heightened  demand  for  labor  can  foreign  workmen,  ignorant 
of  the  country,  its  language,  and  its  ways,  be  absorbed  into  its 
industrial  life.  Whoever  further  studies  the  month-by-month 
fluctuations  in  Italian  immigration  must  infer  that  many  work- 
men — we  call  them  “ birds  of  passage  ” — have  taken  advan- 
tage of  the  fact  that  there  are  seasonal  periods  in  industry. 

The  unspecialized  farm  and  day  laborers  have  given  to  Italian 
emigration  an  all  but  unique  character  in  the  world’s  history. 
The  same  individuals,  had  they  lived  two  thousand  years  ago, 

1 The  absolute  numbers  have  moved  independently  for,  in  its  growing  period, 
Italian  immigration  has  sometimes  ignored  the  general  tendencies  of  the  country. 


342 


UNITED  STATES.  WAGE-EARNING  MAJORITY  343 


would  not  have  been  harnessed  to  tasks  materially  different  from 
those  they  toil  at  today.  Not  only  have  they  lacked  all  specialized 
training,  but  they  have  even  reached  adult  years  without  an  ele- 
mentary inculcation  of  reading  and  writing  — it  is  not  an  acci- 
dent that  printers  are  few  in  Italian  emigration!  They  have 
worked  out  of  doors,  betaking  themselves  wherever  a strong  back 
and  compelling  arms  were  needed,  and  so  far  have  tended  to 
develop  into  muscular  and  healthy  men.  But  the  uncertainty  of 
their  employment,  the  long  hours  of  their  labor,  their  slender 
wage,  and  the  slim  purchases  it  allows,  have  held  back  and 
broken  their  development.  To  the  rest  of  the  world  it  has  fallen 
to  utilize  them  as  they  are. 

During  the  last  forty  years,  laborers  have  been  a higher  pro- 
portion of  the  Italian  immigrants  into  the  United  States  than  of 
any  other  important  immigrating  people.  In  1882,  for  example, 
when  the  immigration  from  western  Europe  was  at  its  zenith  and 
more  persons  reached  our  coasts  than  ever  before,  one-seventh  of 
the  German  immigrants  (speaking  roughly)  were  laborers,  and 
one-third  of  the  Irish,  but  of  the  Italians  one-half.  Rarely  less 
than  a third,  usually  a half  to  two-thirds,  of  a year’s  Italian  immi- 
grants have  been  general  laborers.  The  percentage  in  five-year 
periods  since  1876  falls  generally  between  45  and  60. 

In  some  respects  (but  only  in  some)  a more  truthful  showing  of 
the  relative  place  of  the  laborers  is  given  in  the  censuses.  In 
1870,  one-seventh  of  all  occupied  Italians  were  general  laborers, 
and  only  the  Irish  and  the  East  Asiatics  had  a higher  proportion. 
By  1890  the  laborers  had  increased  to  38,976  and  were  more  than 
a third  of  all  occupied  Italians,  the  Irish,  their  leading  rivals, 
having  an  unchanged  rate  of  only  a fourth;  but  unskilled  railroad 
laborers  were  10,280  more  (at  a very  high  rate  again)  quarrymen 
were  1687,  coal  miners  3889,  other  miners  4132,  and  in  special 
fields  many  others  had  unskilled  employment.  By  1900,  the  last 
year  for  which  census  data  can  be  had,  the  general  laborers  had 
become  actually  93,864,  again  a third  of  all  occupied  Italians, 
making  a rate  now  twice  that  of  the  Irish,  nearly  four  times  that 
of  the  Germans.  Besides,  unskilled  railroad  workmen  were 
17,485,  quarrymen  and  miners  were  25,915  and  further  thousands 


344 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


were  in  lesser  fields,  there  too  having  a representation  far  above 
that  usual  in  the  immigrant  stock.  Do  the  laborers  here  seem 
fewer  than  in  the  annual  immigration  reports?  The  censuses  re- 
veal the  conditions  which  several  years  have  brought  to  existence. 
They  are  decennial  cross  views  of  a shifting  and  irregular  current, 
rather  than  indices  of  an  orderly  progress  — which  does  not  exist. 
Swelling  in  the  plenteous  seasons  and  years,  shrinking  with  the 
approach  of  the  leaner  times,  the  armies  of  general  laborers  come 
and  go;  and  oftener  than  the  case  is  with  other  classes,  the  same 
men  appear  twice,  thrice  or  more  times  in  a decade’s  immi- 
gration. The  laborers,  par  excellence,  are  the  true  temporary 
immigrants. 

To  trace  with  any  fullness,  above  all  in  a brief  space,  the  multi- 
farious industrial  connections  which  the  Italians  have  made  in  this 
country  is  quite  impossible.  We  can  deal  with  them  only  in  the 
large,  and  can  hope  only  to  convey  an  impression  of  diversity  and 
broad  scope,  and  to  emphasize  what  is  typical.  Let  manufac- 
tures have  our  first  attention.1 

1 What  follows  is  based  mainly  on  these  works:  United  States,  Reports  of  the 
Immigration  Commission  (41  vols.,  Washington,  1911),  viii-xii,  xiv,  xv,  xvii,  xx; 
New  York,  Report  of  the  Commission  on  Immigration  ( cit .);  New  Jersey,  Repart  of 
the  Commission  on  Immigration,  Trenton,  1914;  New  York,  Preliminary  Report  of 
the  Factory  Investigating  Commission  (3  vols.,  Albany,  1912),  esp.  i;  and  Fourth 
Report  (5  vols.,  1915),  esp.  ii;  United  States,  Bureau  of  Labor,  Report  on  the  Con- 
dition of  Woman  and  Child  Wage-Earners  in  the  United  States  (19  vols.,  Washing- 
ton, 1910-n),  esp.  i,  ii,  iv;  Connecticut,  Report  of  the  Special  Commission  to  In- 
vestigate the  Conditions  of  Wage-earning  Women  and  Minors  in  the  State,  Hartford, 
1913;  United  States,  Reports  of  the  Industrial  Commission  (19  vols.,  Washington, 
1900-02),  esp.  xv;  United  States,  Report  on  Strike  of  Textile  Workers  in  Lawrence, 
Massachusetts,  in  1Q12,  Washington,  1912;  M.  H.  Willett,  The  Employment  of  Wo- 
men in  the  Clothing  Trade,  New  York,  1902;  J.  E.  Pope,  The  Clothing  Industry  in 
New  York,  Columbia  (Mo.)  1905;  M.  van  Kleeck,  Artificial  Flower  Makers,  New 
York,  1913;  E.  B.  Butler,  Women  and  the  Trades,  New  York,  1909;  A.  M.  Mac- 
Lean,  Wage-Earning  Women,  New  York,  1910;  Women’s  Educational  and  Indus- 
trial Union,  Industrial  Home  Work  in  Massachusetts,  Boston,  1915;  S.  H.  Clark 
and  E.  Wyatt,  Making  Both  Ends  Meet,  New  York,  1911;  L.C.Odencrantz,  Italian 
Women  in  Industry  [New  York  City],  New  York,  1919;  Rossati,  p.  56;  M.  M.  de’ 
Rossi,  Le  donne  ed  i fanciulli  italiani  a Buffalo  e ad  Albion,  Rome,  1913.  Among 
the  many  reports  to  the  Italian  government,  the  following  have  been  the  more 
useful:  E.  Rossi,  op.  cit.-,  G.  Moroni,  “ Lo  stato  dell’  Alabama,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1913, 
No.  1,  pp.  34-66;  G.  Moroni,  “ La  Louisiana  e l’immigrazione  italiana,”  Boll. 


UNITED  STATES.  WAGE-EARNING  MAJORITY  345 


The  metal  trades  have  attracted  many  Italians,  but  not  into 
their  primary  operations.  Unlike  the  Slavs  they  are  rare  in  the 
rolling  mills,  whether  because  of  their  physical  lightness,  or  as 
has  sometimes  been  said,  of  a lack  of  nervous  strength.  But 
many  have  been  employed  outside  the  mills,  in  Birmingham,  in 
Pittsburgh,  and  in  the  Maritime  Provinces  of  Canada.  Many 
have  worked  in  the  foundries,  as  for  instance  in  Detroit.  There 
and  at  Racine  and  Kenosha  they  have  been  occupied  in  the  auto- 
mobile factories;  at  Kenosha,  in  the  iron-bed  works  also.  In 
various  centers  they  have  made  cutlery  and  tools,  gas  and  electric 
fixtures.  In  the  metal-working  shops  of  Connecticut  several 
years  ago,  the  Italian  women  were  nearly  a tenth  of  all  women 
employed.  In  all  these  trades  dexterity  and  celerity  count,  but 
those  who  lack  them  have  still  some  place. 

As  lumber  and  sawmill  hands,  Italians  have  been  employed  in 
Canada,  in  California  and,  especially,  in  Louisiana  and  the  South 
generally.  Many  have  worked  in  the  paper  and  wood-pulp  manu- 
facture; others  in  the  rubber  factories  of  the  East.  In  growing 
numbers  they  have  entered  the  brick  and  tile  works  of  New 
Jersey.  In  the  Middle  States,  Sicilians  and  Calabrians  have  be- 
come prominent  as  employees  in  the  glass  manufacture,  but  not 
in  glass  blowing,  for  which  they  seem  ill-adapted.  Their  coming, 
and  that  of  the  Greeks,  have  been  concomitant  with  the  declining 
importance  of  boy  labor  in  the  glass  industry.  “ The  predom- 
inance of  these  two  races  has  been  in  part  the  result  of  chance,  but 
much  more  largely  the  result  of  the  better  adaptation  of  these 
races  to  the  work.”  1 It  is  for  their  quickness  and  carefulness  that 
they  are  wanted.  In  the  cigar  and  tobacco  industries  in  the  region 
east  of  the  Mississippi,  the  South  Italians  have  been  one  of  the 
leading  foreign  groups  employed;  in  Tampa,  Florida,  several 
thousands  have  been  engaged  in  the  work.  In  the  oil  and  chemi- 
cal industries  of  New  Jersey,  Italians  (and  some  others)  have  been 
displacing  the  German  and  Irish  workers.  In  the  Middle  West 

Emig.,  1913,  No.  s,  pp.  31-53;  G.  E.  di  Palma-Castiglione,  “ Vari  centri  italiani 
negli  stati  di  Indiana,  Ohio,  Michigan,  Minnesota  e Wisconsin,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1915, 
Nos.  6 and  7,  pp.  7-46  and  11-62,  respectively. 

1 Woman  and  Child  Wage-Earners,  iii:  The  Glass  Industry,  p.  168. 


346  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

and  in  Massachusetts  (especially  Brockton)  South  Italians,  men 
and  women,  have  been  prominent  among  recent  immigrants  em- 
ployed in  the  making  of  boots  and  shoes.  Some  of  these,  working 
in  small  groups  in  regular  workshops,  are  taking  the  places  of  the 
disappearing  old  New  England  turn-shoe  men,  who  did  home  work 
on  hand-sewed  turn  shoes. 

The  Italians  have  played  an  important  part  in  the  textile  in- 
dustries, except  the  cotton  manufacture.  They  are  to  be  found 
in  the  cotton  mills  of  fewer  localities,  and  in  smaller  numbers, 
than  any  of  several  other  immigrant  groups.  Why  this  has  been 
is  not  easily  said,  particularly  since  mill  owners  in  Germany  have 
found  them  satisfactory.1  In  the  silk  manufacture,  North  and 
South  Italians  have  been  more  numerous  than  any  other  recent 
immigrants.  They  have  been  employed  in  New  Jersey  much 
more  than  in  Pennsylvania  and  mostly  in  the  city  of  Paterson, 
the  leading  center  in  the  country.  In  New  Jersey,  where  in  recent 
years  they  have  been  perhaps  a sixth  of  all  the  operatives,  more 
than  half  have  been  weavers,  warpers,  or  twisters-in,  which  are 
the  most  highly  skilled  and  best  paid  categories  of  labor;  many 
work  at  silk  dyeing.  Frequently  a whole  family  is  employed.  In 
a hundred  families  of  North  Italians,  a Bureau  of  Labor  investi- 
gation found,  on  the  average,  250  workers;  of  South  Italians  280. 
The  latter  did  the  less  skilled,  more  poorly  paid  work.  The  North 
Italian  families  earned  $933  per  year,  the  South  $829.  Some 
Italians,  it  may  be  noted  in  passing,  have  been  the  owners  of  silk 
mills,  presumably  men  who  had  been  previously  associated  with 
the  trade  in  Italy.  Among  the  makers  of  woolens  and  worsteds, 
in  New  England,  notably  at  Lawrence,  some  thousands  of  South 
Italians  have  had  unskilled  employment.  The  same  may  be  said 
of  the  workers  in  the  rope,  twine  and  hemp  mills  of  New  England 
and  New  York. 

1 By  way  of  explanation  the  Bureau  of  Labor  ventures  that  “they  are  re- 
garded with  less  favor  than  other  races  employed  in  the  same  pursuits.  This  dis- 
favor may  be  attributed  rather  to  a prejudice  against  their  low  standard  of  living 
at  their  homes  than  to  any  particular  lack  of  efficiency  in  their  work  in  the  mill." 
They  began  to  enter  the  mills  especially  after  1904,  and  more  in  Rhode  Island  than 
in  Massachusetts,  yet  mostly  in  Waltham.  Woman  and  Child  Wage-Earners,  i, 
pp.  1 16  f. 


UNITED  STATES.  WAGE-EARNING  MAJORITY  347 


What  the  Italians  have  done  in  the  clothing  industry  might 
serve  for  an  important  chapter  in  the  history  of  labor  in  America. 
In  point  of  number  of  employees,  the  making  of  men’s  clothing 
has  in  normal  times  been  the  seventh  of  our  manufacturing  indus- 
tries, and,  in  the  number  of  women  engaged,  it  has  come  after  the 
cotton  industry.  Almost  entirely  it  has  been  carried  on  in  some 
half  dozen  of  the  great  cities,  and  by  foreign  operatives.  Nearly 
a third  of  the  women  aged  sixteen  or  over,  when  the  Bureau  of 
Labor  studied  the  industry,  were  Italian,  the  rest  being  mainly 
Hebrews,  Germans,  and  Poles.  In  New  York  and  Philadelphia 
Italian  women  were  respectively  two-thirds  and  one-half.  In 
point  of  number  of  men  employed  the  Italians  have  come  after  the 
Jews  only.  It  was  about  1890  that  the  Italians  first  invaded  this 
stronghold  of  the  Jews,  and  they  have  since  continuously  rivalled 
them.  Unlike  Germans  and  Bohemians,  they  have  rarely  been 
machine  workers,  which  may  be  due  to  their  later  arrival  in  the 
trade  — in  our  labor  history,  such  fines  of  cleavage,  however 
created,  have  often  tended  to  persist.  The  Bureau  of  Labor  study 
found  the  Italian  men  to  be  earning  87-810  per  week,  averaging 
in  New  York  88.30  — about  three-quarters  as  much  as  Germans 
and  Hebrews  — while  the  women  earned  85.42,  the  lowest  of  any 
class  of  workers. 

As  early  as  1902,  Miss  Willett  could  write  of  the  Italian  woman 
that  she  had  “ secured  a complete  monopoly  of  part  of  the  work, 
the  felling  and  finishing  of  ready-made  clothing.”  1 After  the 
machine  work,  or  “operating,”  and  the  basting  have  been  done, 
only  plain  sewing  is  necessary  to  fell  the  fining  to  the  cloth  of  the 
garment.  The  materials  can  be  taken  into  the  tenement  and  the 
work  performed  there,  at  any  hours,  on  all  days  of  the  week,  and 
with  or  without  the  aid  of  helpers,  who  are  often  children.  Of  the 
home  finishers,  in  New  York  at  least,  the  Italian  women  have  for 
many  years  been  about  seven  in  eight  of  all  workers,  earning  850- 
8125  a year.  No  wonder  that  a Rochester  manufacturer  could 
say  of  their  kind,  “ They  are  as  cheap  as  children  and  a little 
better.”2  Except  for  such  experience  as  the  women  had  had  in 

1 Willett,  p.  38. 

2 Woman  and  Child  Wage-Earners,  ii,  p.  305. 


348  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

their  homes  in  Italy,  they  — and  the  men  also  — have  entered 
the  trade  unskilled;  yet  both  have  proved  themselves  industrious 
and  deft.  Besides  men’s  clothing,  many  Italians  have  made 
cloaks  and  children’s  apparel. 

The  South  Italians,  along  with  the  Jews,  constitute  a large 
part  of  the  glove  makers  in  the  state  of  New  York.  In  the  hosiery 
and  knit-goods  manufacture  many  are  occupied.  The  New  York 
Factory  Commission,  in  a comprehensive  investigation,  found  the 
Italians,  mostly  women,  to  be  about  a sixth  of  the  employees  in 
the  shirt  trade,  and  a seventh  of  those  in  the  button  industry.  In 
large  numbers  they  have  entered  the  curtain  manufacture  and  in 
smaller  numbers  the  wholesale  branches  of  the  millinery  trade. 
Several  years  ago,  the  making  of  willow  plumes  was  carried  into 
the  Italian  tenements,  to  the  great  cheapening  of  the  product  and 
the  collapse,  within  three  years,  of  the  fashion.  They  made  a 
much  more  permanent  entry  into  the  artificial  flower  trade  of 
New  York,  “ driving  out,”  as  employers  and  workers  both  ad- 
mitted or  charged,  the  other  nationalities;  for  the  fingers  of  Ital- 
ian girls  are  delicate  and  nimble  and  the  newcomers  have  not 
scorned  a low  wage.  In  this  little  trade,  as  so  often  elsewhere, 
they  have  manifested  a characteristic  pride  in  craftsmanship. 

In  several  states,  Italians  of  both  sexes  work  at  candy  making. 
In  New  York,  as  the  Factory  Commission  discovered,  they  are  a 
large  part,  perhaps  three-eighths,  of  the  workers.  Though  the 
occupation  is  mainly  for  girls  and  women,  yet  a third  of  the 
workers  are  men  and  of  these  three-fifths  were  found  to  be  Ital- 
ians; the  girls  and  women  receiving  generally  $5-87.50  per  week, 
the  men  $10-814.  Numerous  Italians,  mainly  men,  have  worked 
in  the  paper-box  factories.  In  Massachusetts  many  home  workers 
have  made  celluloid  goods.  The  steam  laundries  of  New  York 
city  have  employed  German  women  first  of  all,  but  Italian  next, 
who  are  followed  by  Poles  and  lastly  by  Americans ; Italians  are 
specialized  in  mangle  work.  In  those  New  York  piano  factories 
which  turn  out  an  inferior  grade  of  piano,  the  Italian  workmen 
have  largely  outstripped  all  other  nationalities,  even  counting  the 
German  and  German-Americans  as  one  group;  the  industry  was 


UNITED  STATES.  WAGE-EARNING  MAJORITY  349 


once  a stronghold  of  the  German  mechanic.  In  the  canneries  of 
various  parts  of  the  country,  for  example  in  Pittsburgh,  the  region 
about  Buffalo,  and  in  California,  a great  deal  of  seasonal  labor  has 
been  performed  by  Italian  men,  women,  and  children. 

Of  such  breadth  has  been  the  work  of  the  Italians  in  manu- 
facturing and  allied  pursuits.  Natural  aptitudes  have  counted 
in  it,  trained  skill  only  a little,  and  physical  strength  to  but  a 
moderate  degree.  Not  much  knowledge  of  the  country’s  speech 
has  been  necessary.  Chiefly  the  work  has  taken  place  in  the  East, 
where  the  principal  factories  have  been  located  and  most  Italians 
have  settled.  New  York  State,  the  Connecticut  Valley,  and  New 
Jersey  — where  the  Italians  are  now  the  second  immigrant  group 
in  point  of  numbers  — have  been  preferred  regions.  If  Italian 
women  seem  prominent  in  the  recital,  the  reason  is  that  they  have 
been  exceptionally  eager  for  employment  and  yet  have  held  aloof 
from  domestic  service  and  commercial  pursuits. 

In  mining,  as  in  manufacturing,  the  inflow  of  immigrants  in  the 
past  half  century  has  been  accompanied  by  technical  changes 
which  make  possible  the  utilization  of  large  numbers  of  unskilled 
workers.  Once  every  miner  undercut  the  coal,  drilled  his  own 
holes,  fired  his  shots  and,  with  his  helper,  loaded  the  coal  upon  the 
cars.  Now  a machine  and  a skilled  shot  firer  can  provide  work  for 
a number  of  unskilled  men.  It  is  a change  that  has  brought  an 
opportunity  to  the  Italians. 

When  they  first  came  they  were  skilled  miners  from  the  North 
of  Italy,  but  gradually  also  farm  laborers,  both  Northern  and 
Southern,  offered  themselves,  and  in  our  own  day  have  attained 
an  important  post  in  the  industry.  In  1870  there  were  831  Italian 
miners  of  all  sorts;  in  1890,  3889  coal  miners,  4132  other  miners 
and  1687  quarrymen;  in  1900,  25,915  miners  and  quarrymen; 
and  the  great  increase,  which  cannot  be  shown  statistically,  was 
still  to  come.  The  miners  of  1900  were  one  in  twelve  Italian  work- 
men, a rate  far  exceeding  that  of  the  Irish  and  Germans,  and,  in 
general,  of  the  foreign  population.  In  bituminous  coal  mining 
alone,  the  broad  survey  of  the  Immigration  Commission  found 


350 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


them  to  be  one-eighth  of  the  entire  working  force,  little  less 
numerous  than  Slovaks  and  Poles.1 

To  Pennsylvania  the  Italians  came  early.  For  a long  time,  in 
the  anthracite  fields,  they  specialized  in  the  stripping  operations, 
shunning  the  underground  work.2  Gradually  they  assumed  other 
tasks  and  also  increased  in  number.  By  1910,  the  anthracite 
counties  — primarily  Luzerne,  Lackawanna,  and  Schuylkill  — 
contained  28,650  persons  born  in  Italy,  most  of  whom  lived  upon 
miners’  earnings.3  In  the  southwestern  counties  — Allegheny, 
Westmoreland,  Fayette,  and  Washington  — the  Italian  miners 
of  bituminous  coal  have  been  still  more  numerous.  Beyond  doubt, 
in  this  greatest  coal-mining  state  of  the  Union,  the  Italians  have 
constituted  one  of  the  chief  groups  upon  which  the  operators  have 
counted  for  the  successors  to  the  Irish,  German,  Welsh,  and  other 
miners  who  once  dominated. 

To  the  bituminous  mines  of  other  states  they  have  gone  in  ever 
increasing  numbers  — to  Virginia  and  West  Virginia,  Ohio,  Indi- 
ana, Illinois,  Alabama,  Tennessee,  Texas,  Oklahoma,  Kansas, 
New  Mexico,  and  even  (in  large  numbers)  to  British  Columbia. 
To  the  Birmingham  district  they  went  in  three  successive  cur- 

1 On  the  Italians  in  mining,  see  Immigration  Commission,  vi,  vii,  xvi;  Industrial 
Commission,  loc.  cit.;  P.  Roberts,  The  Anthracite  Coal  Communities,  New  York, 
1904;  Warne,  ch.  viii;  Emig.eCol.  1893,  esp.  pp.  436  f.,  452,  454,  464,  478;  F.  J. 
Sheridan,  Italian,  Slavic,  and  Hungarian  Unskilled  Immigrant  Laborers  in  the 
United  States,  United  States  Bureau  0}  Labor  Bulletin,  No.  72  (Washington,  1907), 
pp.  403-486;  L.  Aldrovandi,  “ Note  sulla  emigrazione  italiana  in  Pennsylvania,” 
Boll.  Emig.,  1911,  No.  3,  pp.  3-51;  Moroni,  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1913,  No.  1,  pp.  52,  73; 
Idem,  “ II  Texas  e l’immigrazione  italiana,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1913,  No.  5,  p.  23;  Idem, 
“ L’emigrazione  italiana  nell’  America  del  Nord,”  p.  55;  Idem,  “II  British  Colum- 
bia,” Boll.  Emig.,  1915,  No.  1,  p.  74;  Idem,  “Le  regioni  delle  Provineie  Centrali  del 
Canada,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1915,  No.  2,  pp.  43-71;  F.  Tiscar,  “ L’emigrazione  italiana 
nel  distretto  della  R.  Agenzia  Consolare  di  Scranton,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1913,  No.  13, 
pp.  25-42;  A.  Castigliano,  “ Origine,  sviluppo,  importanza  ed  awe n ire  delle  colonie 
italiane  del  Nord  Michigan  e del  Nord  Minnesota,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1913,  No.  7,  pp.  3- 
22;  F.  Daneo,  “ Condizioni  delle  colonie  italiane  a Stockton  e nelle  Contee  di 
Sonora,  Jackson  ed  Amador  city,”  Bull.  Emig.,  1915,  No.  4,  pp.  45-47;  idem, 
“ L’emigrazione  italiana  in  California,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1913,  No.  14,  pp.  55-57. 

2 They  were  held  to  be  timid,  unwilling  to  incur  danger.  Industrial  Commission, 
xv,  p.  419. 

3 Even  allowing  for  subsequent  additions  to  the  Italians’  numbers  and  for  their 
children  born  in  America,  it  is  difficult  to  reach  the  figure  of  87,000  proposed  by 
Tiscar,  p.  30. 


UNITED  STATES.  WAGE-EARNING  MAJORITY  351 


rents,  first  Genoese  and  Emilians,  then  Lombards  and  Pied- 
montese, lastly  Sicilians,  especially  from  the  province  of  Caltanis- 
setta.  The  North  T exas  community,  at  Thurber,  is  also  of  Sicilians. 
The  Illinois  coal  counties  contained,  in  1910,  18,489  North  and 
South  Italians,  one  of  the  largest  concentrations.  According  to 
the  findings  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  more  than  two-fifths 
of  the  Italians  employed  in  mining  bituminous  coal  had  been  in 
the  country  less  than  five  years.  We  are  dealing  again  with  a 
group  that  comes  and  goes  between  Italy  and  the  United  States. 
Italians  of  the  North,  who  have  been  two-thirds  of  all,  have  been 
stabler  than  those  of  the  South. 

In  the  metalliferous  mines,  the  work  of  the  Italians  has  been  of 
almost  equal  consequence.  In  the  early  days  of  the  Calumet 
exploitation,  half  a century  ago,  some  Piedmontese  and  Tuscan 
miners  were  employed;  a recent  estimate,  which  I take  to  be 
somewhat  exaggerated,  places  at  8000  the  number  of  Italians  in  the 
copper  region  of  northern  Michigan.1  Miners  of  copper  and  silver 
are,  or  have  been,  numerous  in  the  Cobalt  district  of  Ontario,  in 
Montana,  Utah,  Arizona,  New  Mexico,  Colorado,  and  in  several 
counties  of  California.  In  all  these  regions,  their  numbers  have 
fluctuated  much,  a circumstance  not  unfavorable  in  an  industry 
whose  workplaces  are  isolated  and  for  whose  product  the  demand 
varies  broadly.  In  partial  explanation  of  the  decline  of  Italian 
miners  in  the  Calumet  district  in  the  years  before  the  war,  it  has 
been  suggested  that  they  have  been  unwilling  to  work  amid  the 
perils  of  the  ever  deepening  mines.2  Iron  miners  have  long  been 
established  on  the  peninsula  of  Upper  Michigan,  in  Marquette, 
Dickinson,  and  Gogebic  counties.  The  Iron  Mountain  colony 
follows  after  Calumet  in  age  and  importance.  In  the  Mesaba 
Range  of  Minnesota,  thousands  of  Italians  have  had  employ- 
ment. The  Neapolitan  and  Calabrian  open-pit  miners  of  this 
district  work  for  eight  months  and  then  hibernate  in  the  cities. 

These  are  the  principal  kinds  of  Italian  miners  and  their  dis- 
tribution. Two  others  may  not  be  passed  by.  To  South  Caro- 
lina, Italians  came  to  dig  phosphate  rock  a quarter  century  ago, 
and  to  Florida  somewhat  later  they  came  for  the  same  purpose, 

1 Castigliano,  p.  6.  * Ibid.,  p.  7. 


352 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


but  in  both  states  their  numbers  have  fallen  in  recent  years.  In 
the  Middle  and  New  England  states,  with  an  important  center  at 
Quincy,  Italians  in  large  numbers  have  entered  the  granite  and 
other  stone  quarries.  It  is  a work  for  which  they  have  shown 
predilection  and  which  they  have  performed  with  consummate 
success. 

The  outstanding  importance  which  the  Italian  skilled  building- 
trades  workmen  appear  to  have  in  the  statistics  of  disembarking 
aliens  is  somewhat  diminished  when  they  are  regarded  after 
arrival  in  the  country.  The  reason  is  only  that,  unlike  the  types 
we  have  so  far  considered,  they  exercise  a calling  in  which  men  of 
the  older  stocks  are  numerous.  Rarely  do  they  abandon  it  or 
change  it  for  another.  At  the  least  their  skill  is  easily  adapted  to 
the  circumstances  of  the  country,  and  sometimes  it  is  of  a superior 
order,  and  is  prized.  From  Venetia  and  Tuscany,  for  example, 
workers  in  mosaics  and  stucco  have  brought  a special  training,  a 
traditional  aptitude  of  which  Americans  have  been  glad  to  avail 
themselves.  Still  more  does  this  hold  of  the  marble  and  stone- 
cutters — only  72  in  1870,  over  4000  in  1900,  when  their  pro- 
portion among  Italian  workmen  was  thrice  that  among  foreign 
workmen  in  general.  It  is  common  to  find  them  at  work  on  the 
most  exacting  tasks,  insuring  the  neatness  of  appearance,  or  the 
beauty,  of  the  most  ambitious  public  and  private  structures. 

The  carpenters  and  joiners,  woodworkers,  painters,  plasterers, 
and  some  others  have  each  been  represented  by  fewer  individuals, 
at  the  censuses,  than  the  stonecutters,  yet  of  all  the  workmen  of 
of  their  sorts  they  have  been  no  unimportant  part.  Because  of 
the  fact  that  they  engage  in  work  as  individuals,  not  under  a fore- 
man’s eyes,  and  the  fact  that  only  a few  are  assembled  on  one 
undertaking,  or  work  together  for  a limited  time  only,  it  is  difficult 
to  record  their  accomplishment.  A larger  class  than  any  of  these 
are  the  brick  and  stone  masons,  67  in  1870,  5582  in  1900  — no  one 
can  say  how  much  they  have  since  increased.  Twice  as  large  a 
proportion  of  Italians  have  been  masons  as  that  of  men  in  the 
general  foreign  population.  They  are  numerous  not  only  in  the 
cities,  but  in  the  open  country,  finding  employment  upon  tern- 


UNITED  STATES.  WAGE-EARNING  MAJORITY  353 


porary  and  isolated  enterprises.1  A still  larger  group  — but  now 
we  approach  the  realm  of  the  unskilled  — have  been  the  hod- 
carriers.  Here  the  Italians  stand  prominently  beside  the  Irish. 
From  their  ranks  men  rise  occasionally  to  be  masons.  Lowest 
in  the  scale  of  building  workers  are  the  excavators,  reckoned  quite 
unskilled  men,  and  among  the  South  Italians  they  are  an  innumer- 
able throng.  Of  the  character  of  their  work  it  will  be  better  to 
speak  in  another  connection. 

From  early  days  one  of  the  broadest  fields  of  employment  of  the 
Italians  has  been  the  creation  and  maintenance  of  public  works, 
including  public  buildings,  and  the  construction  of  the  plants  of 
the  privately  owned  public  utilities.  Since  the  forms  of  their  work 
vary  greatly,  many  skilled  men  are  utilized,  but  the  mass  are  men 
without  skill.  Sometimes,  in  the  great  cities,  they  are  street 
cleaners,  snow  shovellers,  or  scavengers;  in  San  Francisco,  for 
example,  the  hundreds  of  Italian  street  sweepers  were  said,  some 
years  ago,  to  enjoy  a virtual  monopoly  of  their  labor.2  But  chiefly 
their  work  has  been  in  excavation,  surfacing  and  grading  streets, 
laying  pipes  for  gas  and  water,  digging  sewers,  and  constructing 
harbor  works,  bridges,  dams,  canals,  and  subways  (of  their  work 
upon  the  railways,  more  anon).  In  varying  degrees,  but  exten- 
sively always,  these  are  tasks  on  which  unskilled  men  have  worked 
in  gangs,  eager  for  employment,  however  low  the  wages. 

Even  in  the  last  decade  or  so  of  the  nineteenth  century,  before 
most  Italians  had  come,  their  work  in  these  departments  had  as- 
sumed astonishing  breadth.  In  1890,  the  Inspector  of  Public 

1 To  the  New  York  Commission  on  Immigration  ( Report , p.  134),  union  officials 
declared:  “ The  Italian  race  is  gradually  getting  control  of  our  line  of  work  in  the 
outskirts  and  are  working  their  way  into  the  center  of  the  city.”  Because  references 
to  the  role  of  the  building- trades  workers  in  the  Italian  and  in  other  reports  are 
generally  brief  and  scattered,  as  well  as  numerous,  I have  not  attempted  to  prepare 
a list  of  authorities.  Twenty-five  years  ago,  to  give  but  one  example,  the  volume 
Emig.  e Col.  (1893)  referred  to  the  skilled  workers  on  pp.  (among  others)  442,  448, 
45 1 i-,  455,  463,  478. 

2 G.  Ricciardi,  “Le  condizioni  del  lavoro  e l’emigrazione  italiana  in  California,” 
Emig.  e Col.,  1909,  iii"*,  p.  248.  See  also  Serra,  p.  51  and  F.  Prat,  “ Gli  italiani 
negli  Stati  Uniti  e specialmente  nello  Stato  di  New  York,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1902,  No. 
2,  p.  24. 


354 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


Works  of  New  York  stated,  during  a Congressional  investigation, 
that  90  per  cent  of  the  employees  on  the  public  works  of  New 
York  were  Italians  (some  8000);  of  the  older  workmen,  only  a 
few  Irish-Americans,  he  said,  were  left.  During  the  ten  years 
previous,  machinery  had  been  coming  into  use  for  quarrying  rocks 
in  roadways,  and  steam  shovels  were  taking  the  place  of  hand 
drills.  “ All  reputable  contractors  use  steam  machinery  today 
. . . but  the  Italian  contractor  finds  it  cheaper  to  use  the  men  in 
the  old-fashioned  way.”  1 At  the  same  time  Italians  were  claimed 
(with  superfine  precision !)  to  be  doing  “ 99  per  cent  ” of  the  street 
work  of  Chicago.2  When  natural  gas  was  discovered  in  Indiana 
the  labor  of  laying  250  miles  of  pipe  for  its  conduction  was  per- 
formed by  Italians.3  In  the  early  nineties,  many  were  employed 
in  constructing  the  granite  dam  across  the  Colorado  River,  near 
Austin,  Texas,  and  others  in  widening  the  port  of  Galveston.  In 
the  states  of  the  Far  West,  South  Italians  were  numerous  in  street 
work,  and  many  were  employed  on  the  grounds  of  the  Chicago 
Exposition.4  In  Massachusetts,  in  these  years,  while  the  cities 
still  hired  English  and  Irish  workmen  directly,  contractors  were 
more  and  more  making  use  of  Italians,  particularly  when  unskilled 
men  were  needed  for  work  of  an  exceptional  character;  so  it  was, 
for  example,  with  the  construction  of  the  Brockton  and  Beverly 
sewers,  and  of  a reservoir  at  Northampton.5  Before  the  century 
was  out,  on  the  two-years  enterprise  of  enlarging  the  Erie  Canal, 
10,500  Italians  were  employed  in  a working  force  of  12, 500. 6 

At  the  beginning  of  the  new  century,  the  Industrial  Commission 
inquired  of  the  mayors  of  Eastern  cities  what  was  the  nationality 
of  the  men  employed  on  waterworks,  street  cleaning,  and  related 
undertakings.  From  the  replies  it  appeared  that,  even  when  cit- 
izenship was  a condition  of  employment,  Italians  led  or  were 

1 House  of  Representatives,  Report  of  the  Select  Committee  on  Immigration  and 
Naturalization  (Washington,  1891),  p.  546;  see  in  general,  pp.  540-547. 

2 Ibid.,  p.  623. 

3 O.  C.  McCulloch,  discussion  in  Proceedings  of  the  [16th]  National  Conference  of 
Charities  and  Correction  (Boston,  1888),  p.  430. 

4 Emig.  e Col.,  1893,  pp.  450,  454,  464. 

6 Massachusetts,  Report  of  the  Board  to  Investigate  the  Subject  of  the  Unemployed, 
Part  III  (Boston,  1895),  pp.  43,  94,  102  f. 

6 Industrial  Commission,  xv,  p.  159. 


UNITED  STATES.  WAGE-EARNING  MAJORITY  355 


prominent;  so  at  Baltimore,  Bridgeport,  Buffalo,  Pittsburgh, 
Providence,  Erie,  Hoboken,  Newark,  Schenectady,  Springfield 
(Mass.),  Syracuse,  Utica,  Yonkers,  and  other  places.1  After  the 
devastation  of  Galveston  by  the  hurricane  in  1900,  large  numbers 
of  Italians  assisted  in  clearing  the  city; 2 and  after  the  earthquake 
and  fire  of  San  Francisco  in  1906,  other  thousands  were  among  the 
first,  as  common  laborers,  to  contribute  to  the  rebuilding  of  the 
city.3  An  examination  of  the  workmen  sent  out  from  New  York 
City  by  employment  agencies  in  that  year  indicated  that  the 
Italians  were  maintaining  their  very  conspicuous  position  in 
excavation  and  construction.4  In  the  cities  of  the  northern  states 
they  appeared  to  have  an  undisputed  monopoly  in  street  grading.5 
On  the  building  and  maintenance  of  the  street  railway  lines  of  all 
the  large  cities  of  the  East,  countless  Italian  unskilled  laborers 
have  been  employed,  often  almost  to  the  exclusion  of  other  na- 
tionalities. In  a large  sense  the  subways  of  New  York  and  Boston 
are  their  work.  Many  were  employed  for  the  building  of  the 
filtration  plant  of  Washington,  D.  C.6  Somewhat  later,  in  the 
Catskills,  they  were  prominent  among  the  workmen  engaged  in 
constructing  the  great  Ashokan  Dam. 

So  the  record  goes.  Or  rather,  these  are  but  hints  of  the  kinds  of 
entry  that  might  be  made  in  the  record  innumerable  times  over, 
if  those  who  knew  were  to  write.  In  the  life  of  a nation  such  a 
chronicle  would  have  much  more  than  an  episodic  interest.  For 
us,  even  these  few  fragments  may  serve  to  fix  what  has  been 
characteristic  in  the  Italian  contribution  to  the  country. 

An  important  class  of  Italian  laborers  whose  form  of  activity 
is  only  defined  after  their  arrival  in  this  country  is  the  longshore- 

1 Industrial  Commission,  pp.  437-440. 

2 According  to  information  kindly  supplied  to  me  by  consul  Nicolini. 

3 G.  Naselii,  “ II  terremoto  di  San  Francisco  di  California  e la  colonia  italiana,” 
Boll.  Emig.,  1906,  No.  12,  p.  40. 

4 Sheridan,  p.  420. 

6 Ibid.,  p.  421.  On  similar  employments  in  Rhode  Island,  see  Rhode  Island, 
Bureau  of  Industrial  Statistics,  Some  Nativity  and  Race  Factors  in  Rhode  Island 
(Providence,  1910),  p.  335. 

6 A.  Ravajoli,  “ La  colonia  italiana  nel  Distretto  di  Columbia,”  Emig.  e Col., 
1909,  iii”’,  p.  159. 


356  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

men.  Perhaps  the  oldest  group  is  at  New  Orleans,  where  Sicilians 
unload  the  fruit  that  comes  from  the  Antilles  and  Central  America. 
Another  is  at  Jacksonville,  Florida.  In  the  North,  at  Duluth, 
these  workers  help  start  the  prodigious  ore  shipments  on  their  way 
and  at  Buffalo  they  have  a hand  in  the  immense  Great  Lakes 
traffic.  At  Boston,  it  is  only  in  connection  with  the  coastwise 
traffic  that  they  have  managed  to  get  a foothold.  But  at  the 
greatest  of  all  American  ports,  they  have  come  to  be  a third  or 
more  of  the  men  employed.1 

South  Italians  almost  entirely,  they  first  found  employment  on 
the  New  York  waterfront  about  1887.  Between  1890  and  1892 
they  increased,  and  by  1896  promised  to  threaten  the  supremacy 
of  Irish  and  Irish- Americans.  By  1912  they  had  become  a close 
second  to  these  older  groups,  and  had  forced  them  to  speculate, 
or  even  confidently  to  predict,  that  within  ten  years  the  Italians 
would  stand  first.  By  1912  they  were  a majority  of  the  men  em- 
ployed by  the  American  Line  (Chelsea  piers)  and  were  increasing 
on  the  Hoboken  and  East  River  piers;  the  Bush  Terminal  of 
Brooklyn  employed  Italians  mainly;  the  California  Line  had  one- 
half  Italians;  the  Lloyd  Brazileiro  employed  them  almost  ex- 
clusively. These  are  leading  instances.  On  the  Hoboken  piers  in 
1917,  the  discharge,  for  military  reasons,  of  German  and  Austrian 
employees,  left  the  Italians  there  almost  supreme. 

In  its  swiftness,  this  substitution  of  the  Italian  longshoremen 
for  others  is  one  of  the  most  striking  examples  of  racial  displace- 
ment in  American  industry.  It  is  by  reason  of  their  increasing 
numbers  and  not  by  superior  qualities  that  they  have  come  to  the 
fore.  In  discharging  Mediterranean  fruit  they  may  have  a special 
fitness;  but  generally  they  have  been  ordinary  coal  shovellers  and 
pier  men,  sometimes  hold  men,  only  rarely  deck  hands.  They 
have  had  less  strength  than  the  Irish,  if  common  opinion  and  some 
rough  experiments  may  be  accepted  in  testimony. 

The  Scandinavian-American  Line,  Hoboken,  once  worked  a gang  of  Irish 
in  one  coal  boat  and  a gang  of  Italians  in  another  at  the  same  time,  and 

1 E.  Mayor  des  Planches,  Attraverso  gli  Stati  Uniti  (Turin,  1915),  p.  159;  Moroni, 
in  Boll.  Emig.,  1913,  No.  1,  p.  76,  and  other  passages  in  Boll.  Emig.  I have  relied 
much  upon  an  admirable  work,  C.  B.  Barnes,  The  Longshoremen,  New  York,  19x5. 


UNITED  STATES.  WAGE-EARNING  MAJORITY  357 


found  by  actual  count  that  the  Irish  brought  up  two  bucketfuls  to  the 
Italians’  one.  [Again.]  A foreman  . . . told  of  once  having  put  Italians 
to  work  piling  sugar.  It  had  been  the  custom  to  pile  it  four  and  five  bags 
high,  but  when  they  got  it  three  bags  high  they  had  reached  their  limit. 
Another  stated  that  he  had  seen  Italians  sink  helpless  under  bags  of  sugar 
which  the  Irish  handled  easily.  A third  said  there  is  a knack  in  the  work 
which  the  Irish  possess.  He  had  seen  two  Irishmen  grab  a bag  of  sugar  by 
its  ears  and  swing  it  up,  after  Italians  had  tugged  at  it  for  some  time  without 
moving  it. 1 

It  is  worth  noting  that  they  have  been  inducted  into  the  in- 
dustry by  contracting  stevedores  of  their  own  people,  who  have 
usually  withheld  a part  of  their  wages  by  way  of  commission.  Be- 
cause of  this  deduction  and  because  their  employment  has  com- 
monly been  less  regular  than  that  of  the  Irish,  their  earnings,  in 
the  period  about  1912,  were  generally  as  little  as  $10  or  $12  a 
week. 

What  is  characteristic  in  the  labor  of  Italian  men  in  North 
America  is  nowhere  so  apparent  as  on  the  railways.  Both  rela- 
tively and  absolutely,  the  South  Italians,  as  construction  and  re- 
pair workmen,  have  there  achieved  a foremost  position.  The 
censuses  are  but  blind  aids  to  tracing  these  elusive  armies.  It 
is  true  that  the  category  of  general  steam-railway  employees  gives 
to  the  Italians  an  altogether  exceptional  place,  but  it  embraces 
only  a part  of  them,  while  the  others  are  mainly  and  indistin- 
guishably  collected  in  the  group  of  general  laborers.  What  is 
more,  there  has  been  no  census  since  1900.  The  circumscribed 
studies  of  the  Immigration  Commission  of  1907  found  the  Italians 
to  be  15  per  cent  of  the  workmen  examined  in  steam  railroad 
transportation  and  44  per  cent  of  persons  engaged  in  construction 
work;  but  its  figures  reveal  only  an  interesting  cross-section  view 
and  the  section  runs  only  partly  across.  Without  specifying 
nationalities  the  census  of  1905  found  311,000  track  laborers  em- 
ployed by  the  railroads  of  the  United  States.  Mr.  Sheridan’s 
subsequent  questions  discovered  that  those  of  the  New  England 
states  (11,271)  and  those  of  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey, 
Delaware,  and  Maryland  (60,543)  were  “ largely  Italians  those 


1 Barnes,  p.  9. 


358 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


of  Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Michigan  (42,530)  and  of  Illinois,  Wiscon- 
sin, Minnesota,  and  Iowa  (59,265)  were  “ largely  Italians  and 
Slavs,  with  some  others,”  while  they  were  present  in  the  “ mixed 
races  ” of  the  western  states  and  less  common  among  the  work- 
men, “ largely  negroes,”  of  the  southern  states.1 

The  Italians  have  succeeded  the  Irish  as  the  predominant  un- 
skilled railway  laborers  of  the  country.  Other  peoples  have  played 
important  parts  — the  Chinese,  Germans,  negroes,  Slavs,  and 
Hungarians,  more  recently  the  Mexicans  and  Japanese  — but 
Irish  and  Italians,  in  successive  epochs,  have  led  all.  Thirty  odd 
years  ago,  when  rag  pickers  and  street  musicians  still  seemed  to 
many  the  very  quintessence  of  Italian  immigration,  the  pick-and- 
shovel  laborers  were  silently  being  carried  to  the  remoter  places 
and  set  to  work  on  the  railways.  A decade  later,  a contemporary 
non-statistical  view  held  that  “ the  Irish  have  ceased  building 
railroads  and  doing  the  hard  work  of  constructing  public  works. 
The  Italians  have  taken  their  place.”  2 

It  was  in  fact  in  the  nineties  that  they  first  came  to  be  em- 
ployed extensively.  They  were  scattered  over  much  of  the 
country,  as  appears  from  their  engagement  in  these  years  by  the 
Bangor  and  Aroostock,  Maine  Central,  Pennsylvania,  Central 
of  New  Jersey,  Union  Pacific,  Colorado  and  Southern,  and  “ Big 
Four  ” roads.3  In  the  early  years  of  the  decade  there  had  come 
to  be  at  New  York  a constant  demand  for  Italian  railway  labor,4 
and  Chicago  had  become  a great  center  of  distribution.6  Later  the 
Maine  Bureau  of  Labor  reported  to  the  investigators  of  the  Indus- 
trial Commission  that  Italians  had  quite  displaced  railroad  labor 
in  Maine,  adding,  “ It  would  be  a difficult  thing  at  the  present 
time  to  build  a railroad  of  any  considerable  length  without  Italian 
labor.”  6 

1 Sheridan,  p.  434. 

2 G.  F.  Parker,  “ What  immigrants  contribute  to  industry,”  The  Forum,  Jan- 
uary, 1893,  p.  602. 

3 These  facts  and  others  detailed  below  I take  from  letters  which  I have  received 
from  the  officials  of  a number  of  important  roads.  I have  below  referred  to  the 
source  as  Letters. 

1 Riva,  in  Emig.  e Col.,  1893,  p.  439. 

6 Ottolenghi,  p.  379.  6 Industrial  Commission,  xv,  p.  441. 


UNITED  STATES.  WAGE-EARNING  MAJORITY  359 


In  the  new  century  the  utilization  of  Italian  labor  has  continued 
apace.  A few  years  ago,  the  Union  Pacific  was  employing  with 
some  constancy  500-1000  Italians,  the  Great  Northern  1500,  and 
the  Pennsylvania  10, 000. 1 The  Wabash  reported  that  it  had  em- 
ployed at  one  time  over  800,  the  Chicago  and  Northwestern  1100, 
the  Chicago,  Milwaukee,  and  Puget  Sound  1500,  the  Union 
Pacific  1500-2000,  the  Great  Northern  9000,  the  New  York,  New 
Haven  and  Hartford  10,000,  the  Pennsylvania  13, 500. 2 These 
are  samples  only.  On  the  other  Eastern,  Central,  and  Western 
roads  the  scale  has  been  similar;  but  on  the  Southern  roads  Ital- 
ians have  been  fewer.3  Even  the  most  distant  parts  of  Canada 
have  received  a great  supply  of  Italian  railroad  labor,  sometimes 
importing  it  directly  through  Italian  employment  houses,  some- 
times receiving  it  from  the  United  States.  In  1902,  consular 
agents  claimed  that  the  Canadian  roads  were  employing  6000 
Italians.  In  1903  the  Canadian  Pacific  alone  employed  over 
3000, 4 and  the  Grand  Trunk  Pacific  has  in  recent  years  used  large 
numbers  in  its  extensive  construction  work.5 

1 Letters.  Vice-President  Atterbury  of  the  Pennsylvania  wrote  (August  26, 1911) : 
“ On  nearly  all  the  important  work  we  have  done  in  recent  years  there  has  been  a 
large  percentage  of  Italian  labor,  and  this  applies  to  work  done  directly  by  the  rail- 
road or  by  contractors.” 

2 Letters,  except  for  N.  Y.,  N.  H.  & H.,  concerning  which  see  Michele,  p.  ir. 
Thousands  of  Italians  were  employed  by  contractors,  in  which  case  they  did  not 
generally  appear  in  the  figures  given. 

3 Letters.  See  also  Boll.  Emig.,  passim;  e.g.:  G.  Banchetti,  “ Gli  italiani  in  . . . 
Buffalo,”  1902,  No.  5,  p.  20;  P.  Ginocchio,  “ Gli  italiani  in  . . . Louisiana,”  1902, 
No.  it,  pp.  14 f.;  Saint-Martin,  p.  5;  C.  Nicolini,  “Gli  italiani  nel  . . . Texas,” 
1903,  No.  1,  p.  20;  “ Relazione  sui  servizi  . . . aprile  1907-aprile  1908,”  1908, 
No.  9,  p.  46;  L.  Villari,  “ L’emigrazione  italiana  nel  distretto  consolare  di  Fila- 
delfia,”  1908,  No.  16,  p.  27;  “Relazione  sui  servizi  . . . 1909-1910,”  1910,  No.  18, 
p.  85.  Cf.  Ravajoli,  p.  160.  In  1906,  56  per  cent  of  the  Italians  sent  out  of 
New  York  by  various  employment  bureaus  went  as  railroad  laborers;  Sheridan, 
p.  421. 

4 Canada,  Royal  Commission  on  the  Immigration  of  Italian  Labourers  to  Mon- 
treal and  the  Alleged  Fraudulent  Practices  of  Employment  Agencies,  Report  (Ot- 
tawa, 1905),  p.  xi. 

6 E.  Rossi,  pp.  7,  9;  D.  Viola,  “ Le  condizioni  degli  operai  italiani  nel  distretto 
minerario  di  Cobalt,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1910,  No.  13,  p.  13;  B.  Attolico,  “ Sui  campi 
di  lavoro  della  nuova  ferrovia  transcontinentale  canadese,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1913,  No.  1, 
pp.  3-26;  G.  Moroni,  “ Le  condizioni  attuali  dei  lavori  sulla  grande  Transcontinen- 
tale del  Canada,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1914,  No.  9,  pp.  45-50. 


360  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

Neither  exceptional  strength  nor  exceptional  carefulness  is 
essential  to  the  performance  of  the  railway  tasks  of  the  Italians. 
Upon  occasion  there  is  unusual  hazard.1  Generally  the  salient 
characteristic  of  their  work  is  routine : groups  of  men  — a few 
or  many  — are  directed  by  an  “ interpreter.”  The  gangs  toil  at 
the  construction  and  repair  of  track  and  roadbed  — laying  and 
replacing  ties  and  rails,  ballasting  and  surfacing  — and  in  ditch- 
ing, grading,  quarrying  rock  and  tunneling.  They  are  sought  for 
the  removal  of  soil  and  rock  after  washouts,  and  are  found  willing 
to  stand  in  wet  and  muck.  While  some  immigrants  welcome  work 
with  timber,  the  Italians  avoid  it  and  specialize  in  rock  work, 
including  blasting.  Sometimes  they  undertake  masonry  opera- 
tions, or  are  employed  on  work  trains,  or,  less  commonly,  as  dock 
laborers  in  unloading  coal  and  cleaning  pits,  and  in  general  build- 
ing with  its  attendant  excavation  (as  for  example  on  the  Union 
Station  at  Washington  or  the  Grand  Central  Terminal  in  New 
York).  Whatever  their  tasks,  skill,  judgment,  and  responsibility 
are  but  an  insignificant  element,  and  they  fulfill  their  function 
when  a number  together  contentedly  and  unintermittently  ply 
shovel  and  pick.  Next  to  lifting  loads,  this  is  perhaps  the  most 
elementary  form  of  human  labor. 

Because  Italian  workmen  have  done  so  much  to  make  and 
maintain  the  American  railway  net,  and  because  so  many  who 
have  not  entered  transportation  have  yet  been  similarly  circum- 
stanced as  regards  both  skill  and  pay,  I inquired  further,  several 
years  ago,  into  the  traits  they  have  exhibited.  From  railway  vice- 
presidents  in  charge  of  operation,  chief  engineers,  division  super- 
intendents, and  others  in  a position  to  watch  Italian  workmen,  on 
the  larger  railways  and  many  of  the  smaller  ones,  I obtained 
statements  aiming  to  show  what  measure  of  steadfastness, 
strength,  endurance  and  other  qualities  the  Italians  have  mani- 
fested. Somewhat,  and  inevitably,  the  personal  equation  affects 
all  of  these  opinions,  yet  their  general  drift  may  be  credited. 

1 They  were  singled  out  for  employment  on  dangerous  cuts  by  one  Western 
road.  See  V.  S.  Clark,  “ Mexican  Labor  in  the  United  States,”  Bulletin,  U.  S. 
Bureau  of  Labor,  No.  78  (1908),  p.  500.  Cf.  Moroni,  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1914,  No.  9, 
p.  so. 


UNITED  STATES.  WAGE-EARNING  MAJORITY  361 

In  not  one  letter  is  there  unqualified  praise  of  both  South  and 
North  Italians.  On  one  Northern  road  their  persistence  during 
the  season  of  mild  weather  is  commended  and  they  are  said 
to  be  less  given  to  the  excessive  use  of  alcoholic  drinks  than 
most  American  laborers.  In  various  statements  their  “regular 
habits  ” are  noted  and  they  are  described  as  economical  and  fairly 
industrious  — how  industrious  depends  partly  on  the  character  of 
the  interpreter  or  supervisor.  But  let  the  letters  speak;  each 
numbered  excerpt  refers  to  a different  road. 

1.  They  are  probably  the  best  immigrant  labor  we  are  able  to  procure 
in  any  quantity  at  the  present  time.  They  do  not,  of  course,  compare  in 
efficiency  with  the  Irish  labor  employed  by  the  railroads  fifteen  or  twenty 
years  ago. 

2.  Their  bad  qualities  are  low  efficiency  and  inability  to  withstand  cold 
weather,  consequently  leaving  the  service  in  winter.  (Their  good  qualities 
are  those  just  stated  with  regard  to  a Northern  road.) 

3.  With  rigid  supervision  they  are  able  and  desirable  employees,  but 
with  the  relaxing  of  such  supervision  their  efficiency  decreases. 

4.  Work  which  they  understand  is  satisfactorily  done.  They  are  not 
as  desirable  as  Irishmen. 

5.  They  have  no  special  qualifications;  in  fact  they  are  usually  paid 
somewhat  less  than  so-called  white  labor. 

6.  We  further  find  that  after  a few  weeks  employment,  the  interpreter 
starts  a row  in  the  gang  by  which  the  gang  quits  work,  and  we  immediately 
find  that  they  have  gone  to  work  for  some  other  company;  the  interpreter 
thus  collecting  another  fee.  . . . Where  a few  can  work  together  in  taking 
out  rock  they  do  very  well , both  as  to  the  character  of  their  work  and  the 
rapidity  with  which  they  do  it.  . . . But  for  general  railroad  work  I pre- 
fer any  other  nationality.  (Mexicans,  Japanese  and  some  others  had  in  the 
previous  two  years  been  supplanting  Italians  on  this  road.) 

7.  Some  of  our  Division  Superintendents  report  that  they  consider  the 
Italian  track  laborers  better  than  other  nationalities  for  the  reason  that 
they  seem  to  live  and  take  care  of  themselves  better  and  are  better  able  to 
perform  their  duty  and  work  more  regularly.  Some  report  that  they  find 
many  of  them  slow  to  understand  what  is  wanted  but  after  they  once  learn 
the  work  they  are  very  fair  laborers,  steady  and  reliable,  but  not  good  for 
any  work  requiring  much  skill  or  care.  One  Division  Superintendent  re- 
ports that  he  does  not  consider  the  Italians  any  more  desirable  workmen 
than  the  Greeks. 

8.  Our  opinion  is  that  generally  the  amount  of  work  done  per  Italian 
laborer  per  day  is  not  equal  to  the  amount  of  work  done  per  laborer  per  day 
by  our  other  white  laborers  or  by  negroes.1 

1 Unfavorable  comparison  with  the  negro,  on  physical  grounds,  has  led,  I am 
informed,  to  some  substitution  of  negroes  for  Italians  in  the  unloading  of  vessels  at 
New  Orleans. 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


362 

9.  The  Division  Superintendent  of  — division  says,  “ I am  unable  to 
say  very  much  in  favor  of  Italian  labor.  We  would  prefer  to  employ  Huns 
[Hungarians],  Slavs  or  Poles  if  we  could  get  them.  The  dearth  of  other 
foreign  labor  has  compelled  us  to  introduce  Italian  labor.”  The  chief  diffi- 
culty with  these  laborers  appears  to  be  that  they  are  easily  influenced,  very 
superstitious,  quickly  dissatisfied,  and  therefore,  under  the  circumstances, 
for  the  most  trivial  cause  will  seek  other  employment.  Other  classes  of 
foreigners  are  also  generally  more  brawny  and  better  fit  for  the  work.  The 
Huns,  Slavs,  and  Poles  will  not  live  in  bunk  cars,  or  even  bunk  houses.  . . . 
Italians  live  in  bunk  cars  for  from  $5  to  $8  per  month  for  all  the  food  that 
they  consume,  part  of  which  is  for  beer,  and  they  naturally  do  not  have  the 
strength  and  vitality  that  the  other  classes  referred  to  have.  It  has  been 
our  experience  that  it  takes  a larger  number  of  Italians  to  do  any  piece  of 
work  than  natives,  or  even  the  other  foreigners  referred  to.  . . . Our 
superintendent  of  — division  reports  that  . . . the  Sicilians  prove  good 
laborers,  provided  they  are  in  charge  of  a foreman  of  a different  nationality, 
who  will  keep  close  watch  on  them  and  see  that  the  work  is  properly  done, 
but  without  a competent  foreman  they  are  of  very  little  value.  . . . 

In  an  actual  test  made  by  this  company  to  determine  the  efficiency 
of  Italian  laborers,  they  were  shown  to  have  performed  in  a given 
time  only  from  35  per  cent  to  50  per  cent  of  the  same  work  done 
by  native  laborers. 

10.  From  our  experience  it  is  generally  agreed  that  [Southern]  Italians 
run  below  Americans  as  to  strength  and  efficiency.  ...  It  is  the  general 
opinion  that  the  Northern  Italian,  together  with  the  Austrian,  is  the  best 
foreign  laborer.  The  Southern  Italian  is  a poor  worker  of  low  efficiency; 
and  the  Sicilian  is  a very  poor,  undersized  laborer,  incapable  of  heavy  work. 

What  clearly  emerges  from  this  study  is  that  the  Italians  are 
employed  in  great  numbers  partly  because  they  are  to  be  had, 
while  other  workmen  are  not,  and  partly  because,  in  certain  kinds 
of  work  especially,  and  with  due  organization  and  oversight,  they 
produce  good  results.  While  demonstrating  less  power  in  ac- 
complishment than  some  of  their  harder-fibered  predecessors, 
they  have  been  willing  to  fag  in  isolated  places  for  many  hours 
in  the  day. 


CHAPTER  XIX 


UNITED  STATES.  III.  THE  AGRICULTURAL  SITUATION 

Whoever  reads  the  expansive  signs  that  glare  from  the  facades 
of  the  endless  Bowery  employment  houses  cannot  fail  to  under- 
stand why  Italians  are  to  be  found  in  the  occupations  we  have 
discussed.  Whoever  further  stops  to  recall  what  has  been  the 
industrial  phase  of  the  country  during  the  quarter  century  past 
cannot  fail  to  understand  why  such  signs  should  appear.  The 
Italians  have  grasped  at  opportunities  held  out  to  them.  “ Here 
I am,”  they  have  said,  being  humble  folk,  “ use  me  where  you  will, 
only  give  me  my  daily  bread.” 

No  one,  however,  who  has  followed  the  history  of  the  Italians 
in  South  America  can  fail  to  ask  one  question : Have  not  the  Ital- 
ians become  farmers  ? Agriculture  is  still  the  principal  industry 
of  the  country.  It  employs  more  hands  than  any  other.  A glance 
at  the  census  shows  that  its  output  has  continued  to  increase  by 
leaps  and  bounds.  Farms  are  for  sale,  workmen  are  in  demand, 
and  every  year  brings  hosts  of  Italians  to  our  shores  — men  and 
women,  from  the  most  agricultural  parts  of  one  of  the  oldest 
agricultural  countries  of  the  world.  What  have  the  Italians  done 
as  farmers  ? 1 

1 An  invaluable  study  is  by  Dr.  Cance  in  Report  of  the  Immigration  Commission, 
xxi  and  xxii.  See  also  ch.  vii  (by  E.  Lord)  in  E.  Lord,  J.  J.  D.  Trenor,  S.  J.  Barrows, 
and  others,  The  Italian  in  America,  New  York,  1905;  A.  H.  Stone,  “ Italian  cotton- 
growers  in  Arkansas,”  American  Monthly  Review  of  Reviews,  February,  1907,  pp. 
209-213;  E.  F.  Meade,  “The  Italian  on  the  Land”  [Hammonton]  in  United  States 
Bureau  of  Labor,  Bulletin  No.  70  (1907),  pp.  473-533;  L.  Mathews,  “ Tontitown,” 
Everybody's  Magazine,  January,  1909,  pp.  3-13;  A.  Pecorini,  “The  Italian  as  an 
Agricultural  Laborer,”  Annals  of  American  Academy  of  Political  and  Social  Science, 
March,  1909,  pp.  380-390;  F.  Ferrero,  “ A New  St.  Helena,”  The  Survey,  Novem- 
ber 6,  1909,  pp.  171-180;  A.  Moore,  “ A Safe  Way  to  Get  on  the  Soil  ” [Tontitown] 
World’s  Work,  June,  1912,  pp.  215-219. 

In  Boll.  Emig.,  see  Serra,  pp.  38  f.,  46  f.;  Banchetti,  p.  22;  “ Delle  condizioni 
della  Virginia  dell’  Est  [sic]  rispetto  alia  colonizzazione,”  1902,  No.  11,  pp.  19-22; 
A.  Ravaioli,  “ La  colonizzazione  agricola  negli  Stati  Uniti,”  1904,  No.  4,  pp.  3-49; 
G.  Rossati,  “ La  colonizzazione  negli  stati  di  Mississippi,  Louisiana  ed  Alabama,” 

363 


364  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

They  have  not  held  aloof.  They  have  even  — unless  the  het- 
erogeneous peoples  of  Austria-Hungary  be  admitted  collectively 
to  rivalry  — been  more  numerous  than  any  other  recent  immi- 
grants. Measured,  however,  by  plausible  expectations,  they  have 
been  few.  In  1870  they  numbered  1443  and  were  one  out  of  seven 
occupied  Italians;  it  was  a much  higher  proportion  than  any  they 
have  since  touched.  In  1890,  they  were  7902,  perhaps  one  in 
fifteen  occupied  Italians.  Ten  years  later,  they  were  19,194,  reck- 
oning all  persons  who  had  at  least  one  parent  bom  in  Italy;  say, 
one  in  sixteen  of  the  class.  But  among  Germans,  Norwegians, 
and  Swiss,  one  in  two,  at  least  one  in  four,  were  in  agriculture 
when  the  present  century  began. 

If  the  Italian  agriculturists  in  the  United  States  have  sometimes 
undertaken  their  work  very  soon  after  arrival  in  the  country,  they 
have  quite  as  commonly  engaged  first  in  a different  occupation. 
They  may  even  for  an  indefinite  time  alternate  employment  in 
two  callings,  as  several  thousand  Italians  are  reported  to  have 
done  when  they  quitted  railroad  work  in  the  North  and  moved  to 
Louisiana  for  the  sugar  harvest  between  December  and  March.1 

1904,  No.  14,  pp.  3-30;  G.  Fara  Forni,  “ Gritaliani  nel  distretto  consolare  di  Xuova 
Orleans,”  1905,  No.  17,  pp.  3-17;  C.  Quairoli,  “ La  colonia  italiana  di  Vineland,” 
1908,  No.  16,  pp.  31-57;  G.  E.  di  Palma  Castiglione,  “ Dove  possono  andare  gli 
immigrati  agli  Stati  Uniti  ? ” 1909,  No.  18,  pp.  3-26;  G.  Moroni,  1913,  No.  3, 
PP-  3-53;  1913.  No.  12,  pp.  47-55;  I9I5,  No.  2,  pp.  41-72,  and  his  other  articles, 
viz.,  “ II  Texas  e l’emigrazione  italiana,”  1909,  No.  18,  pp.  27-56;  “ Gli  italiani  in 
Tangipahoa  ” (Louisiana),  1910,  No.  7,  pp.  3-6;  “ Censimento  delle  famiglie  italiane 
nelle  piantagioni  di  cotone  della  vallata  del  flume  Mississippi,”  1913,  No.  5,  pp.  122- 
124;  “ Condizioni  attuali  delle  colonie  agricole  italiane  di  Daphne,  High  Bank  e 
Hearne,”  1913,  No.  8,  pp.  70-72;  B.  Attolico,  “ L’agricoltura  e 1’immigrazione  nel 
Canada,”  1912,  No.  3,  pp.  3-36;  L.  Villari,  “ Gli  italiani  nel  distretto  consolare 
di  New  Orleans,”  1907,  No.  20,  pp.  3-46;  and  idem,  a report  with  a similar  title,  in 
Emig.  e Col.,  1909,  iii'*',  pp.  202-221. 

See  further  Gli  italiani  negli  Stati  Uniti,  pp.  20-48;  V.  Mantegazza,  Agli  Stall 
Uniti  (Milan,  1910),  pp.  119-125;  Mayor  des  Planches,  passim',  A.  Starace, 
Articoli,  lettere,  discorsi,  New  York,  1913;  G.  Chiesi,  “La  nostra  emigrazione  agli 
Stati  Uniti  e la  colonizzazione  italiana  nel  Texas,”  Rivista  Coloniale,  March- April, 
1908,  pp.  177-194;  P.  Pisani,  “La  colonia  italiana  di  Chicago,  HI.,  e la  nuova 
iniziativa  di  Marconiville,”  Italica  Gens,  May  1910,  pp.  135-178;  P.  Bandini,  “ II 
ritomo  ai  campi,”  Italica  Gens,  June-July,  1911,  pp.  258-279;  Almanacco  enciclo- 
pedico  italo-americano  I (New  York,  1913),  pp.  143-150. 

1 Saint-Martin,  p.  5;  G.  Moroni,  “ L’emigrazione  italiana  nel  distretto  consolare 
di  Nuova  Orleans,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1908,  No.  16,  p.  24.  Such  cross-country  seasonal 


UNITED  STATES.  AGRICULTURAL  SITUATION  365 

To  some  extent  the  many  settlements  of  independent  farmers  in 
Louisiana  were  begun  by  railway  laborers  who  invested  their  sur- 
plus earnings  in  land  and  devoted  their  available  time  to  improv- 
ing it.  The  colony  at  Fredonia,  New  York,  composed  chiefly  of 
emigrants  from  Valle  d’Olmo  (province  of  Palermo),  was  estab- 
lished by  common  laborers  who  had  been  working  in  the  vicinity; 
and  the  South  Italian  colony  at  Cumberland,  Wisconsin,  is  a 
pronounced  instance  of  the  same  sort.  In  a broad  survey  of  the 
Italians  in  agriculture  made  by  the  Immigration  Commission,  it 
was  discovered  that  one-half  had  previously  been  engaged  in  some 
industrial  labor;  for  the  South  Italians  a higher  percentage  than 
for  the  North.  Not  only  the  denizens  of  the  rural  colonies  (like 
those  mentioned),  but  also  the  cultivators  of  lots  outside  the  large 
cities,  generally  South  Italians,  have  been  day  laborers.  After 
all,  the  transition  to  the  farm,  by  way  of  common  or  industrial 
labor,  has  in  it  nothing  surprising,  as  will  presently  be  made 
clearer;  in  Brazil,  and  especially  in  Argentina,  the  procedure  has 
been  common  enough. 

In  one  capacity  or  another,  the  Italians  as  agriculturists  are 
present  in  nearly  every  state.  Three  distinct  types  exist.  The 
commonest  is  the  laborer,  often  a resident  of  one  of  the  larger 
cities,  who  goes  out  to  some  sort  of  encampment  to  pick  berries 
or,  in  the  canning  season,  to  gather  vegetables  and  fruits.  He  is 
found  in  the  Eastern  and  Southern  states  and,  to  some  extent,  in 
the  Far  West.  The  second  type  is  the  market  gardener  or  truck 
farmer,  usually  a South  Italian,  who  has  acquired  a piece  of  land 
in  the  suburbs  of  the  larger  cities  or  who  turns  to  account  some 
vacant  lot.  He  may  sell  to  his  compatriots  in  the  cities  or  to  the 
general  markets.  Though  he  is  to  be  found  in  a wide  range  of 
states,  his  important  settlements  lie  between  the  Mississippi  and 
the  Atlantic,  and  on  the  southern  edge  of  San  Francisco.  The 

migrations,  recalling  the  seasonal  movements  within  Italy,  are  perhaps  more  fre- 
quent in  the  United  States  than  they  are  known  to  be.  Attention  has  already  been 
called  to  the  winter  movement  from  the  copper  camps  to  the  cities,  and  to  the  dis- 
appearance of  the  railway  laborers  from  the  northern  tier  of  states  on  the  approach 
of  winter.  There  is  also,  during  the  winter,  a movement  from  the  construction  camps 
and  their  kind,  of  upper  New  York  and  elsewhere,  to  the  water  front  of  New  York. 
Barnes,  p.  90. 


366  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

third  type  is  the  proprietor  or  tenant  of  a plot  of  land  in  a fairly 
isolated  rural  community.  Such  communities  exist  in  some  fif- 
teen states,  in  the  East  and  South  of  the  country.  They  come 
nearest  to  being  counterparts  of  the  South  American  colonies.  In 
1909,  when  nearly  all  were  studied  by  the  Immigration  Commis- 
sion, they  contained  about  22,000  Italians  of  foreign  or  American 
birth. 

A signal  instance  of  the  Italian  colony  is  at  Canastota,  in  west- 
ern New  York.  In  1897  a laborer  bought  and  cleared  some  muck 
land  and  sent  for  his  family.  Gradually  other  settlements  were 
made,  chiefly  by  Neapolitans  who  had  been  in  the  United  States 
for  from  ten  to  twenty  years.  On  their  farms  of  from  five  to  ten 
acres  they  raise  onions  and  other  vegetables,  utilizing  to  the  full 
the  labor  of  wife  and  children,  and  making  a good  profit.  Near 
Hartford,  Connecticut,  in  the  hills  about  South  Glastonbury,  to 
take  another  case,  a North  Italian  laborer  squatted  in  1892, 
clearing  land  of  the  relatively  infertile  sort  that  Americans  had 
ceased  to  care  about.  Soon  other  men  followed,  who  had  been 
farm  laborers  in  Piedmont,  Lombardy,  and  Liguria  and  had  saved 
money  as  common  laborers  in  the  United  States.  These  Italians 
have  prospered,  raising  peaches  and  berries,  some  grain  and 
forage,  on  farms  generally  of  less  than  eighty  acres. 

In  Wisconsin,  again,  at  Genoa,  along  the  Mississippi,  a few 
men  from  Piedmont  and  Lombardy  settled  as  far  back  as  i860, 
and  most  of  the  others  as  lately  as  1890.  They  cut  away  the  hard- 
wood forests,  and  slowly  developed  a successful  general  fanning, 
despite  a temperature  that  in  winter  reaches  38°  (Fahr.)  below 
zero.  Such  cleanliness  and  neatness  as  their  houses  show  are  rare 
in  our  Italian  colonies,  contrasting  sharply  for  instance  with  those 
at  Cumberland,  Wisconsin,  an  important  South  Italian  settle- 
ment. Men  from  the  Abruzzi  and  Sicily,  railroad  workers  and  the 
like,  bought  lands  in  this  place  from  real  estate  speculators  in  the 
eighties  and  later  grew  hay  and  potatoes,  and  kept  some  “scrub  ” 
cattle;  but  they  have  not  generally  raised  wheat  or  corn,  and  have 
done  little  dairying  in  a region  finely  fitted  therefor.  At  Cumber- 
land it  is  still  largely  the  wives  and  children  of  laborers  who 
cultivate. 


UNITED  STATES.  AGRICULTURAL  SITUATION  367 


Most  important  of  all  the  northern  colonies  are  those  of  New 
Jersey.  With  the  help  of  one  Secchi  de  Casale,  North  Italians 
began  to  come  in  1873  to  the  pine  barrens  of  Vineland.  They 
bought  their  lands  of  the  American  owner  who  took  an  initial 
payment  and  allowed  liberal  time  — and  extensions  of  time  — 
for  the  payment,  with  6 per  cent  interest,  of  the  remainder. 
South  Italians  have  recently  come  also,  for  the  colony  has  a wide 
area;  but  the  first  comers’  farms  are  still  the  larger  and  better. 
Sweet  potatoes  and  berries  are  the  chief  crops,  but  grapes,  pep- 
pers, corn,  and  forage  also  are  important.  Though  slow  to  dis- 
cover the  cheapness  of  machinery  and  horse  labor,  and  relatively 
unsuccessful  in  growing  peaches  and  pears  where  Nature  has 
offered  many  inducements,  the  Italians  have  otherwise  learned, 
and  successfully  used,  an  American  technique.  In  the  seventies, 
some  Sicilians,  at  first  only  from  the  town  of  Gesso,  began  to  come 
to  Hammonton,  also  in  the  pine  belt.  Many  had  been  berry 
pickers,  living  in  Philadelphia,  and  they  set  to  growing  black- 
berries, strawberries,  and  red  raspberries  in  the  sandy  and 
gravelly  loam,  and  grapes  and  sweet  potatoes.  Though  indebted- 
ness is  still  common  and  their  houses  often  are  poor  and  dirty,  the 
colony  has  grown  greatly  and  many  of  its  members  have  saved 
money. 

In  North  Carolina  are  two  noteworthy  settlements.  To  the 
wild  heights  of  Valdese.  directly  from  the  mountains  of  the  prov- 
ince of  Turin,  there  came,  in  1893,  a number  of  selected  farming 
famihes,  literate,  skilled,  possessed  of  some  money.  They  paid 
$5  an  acre  for  land,  and  soon  emerged  from  debt.  As  general 
farmers  they  quickly  proved  themselves  superior  to  the  Americans 
about  them,  whom  they  have  stimulated,  in  turn,  to  more  produc- 
tive methods.  St.  Helena  was  settled  in  1905  by  farmers  who  had 
been  brought  by  a land  company  straight  from  the  province  of 
Rovigo.  They  also  purchased  their  lots  on  instalments,  and  as 
growers  of  truck  crops  and  fruits  have  prospered.  In  Alabama, 
Daphne  (1890)  and  Lambert  (1893),  founded  by  the  enthusi- 
astic Mr.  Mastro-Valerio,  and  composed  of  a few  North  Italian 
families  previously  resident  in  the  United  States,  have  done  con- 
siderably less  well. 


368  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

Justly  well  known  is  the  colony  of  North  Italians  at  Sunnyside, 
Arkansas,  located  on  rich  Delta  soil.  Established  in  1895  by  the 
landowner,  Mr.  Corbin,  it  all  but  came  to  grief  in  1898.  Revived, 
with  cotton  factors  in  charge,  it  climbed  to  success.  Unlike  the 
negroes,  the  Italians  have  been  unwilling  to  rent  on  shares,  paying 
instead  about  $6-$7  per  acre  per  year.  In  their  yards  they  grow 
vegetables,  while  the  negro  buys  them  at  the  store,  paying  credit 
prices.  They  work  incessantly,  planting  every  comer  and,  as 
repeated  comparisons  have  shown,  secure  a crop  half  again  as 
great  per  acre  as  that  of  the  negro.  As  cultivators  they  are 
emphatically  superior  to  the  black  folk.1  In  the  northwest  of  the 
state,  high  in  the  Ozark  mountains,  is  Tontitown,  a remarkable 
instance  of  the  success  that  springs  from  capable  leadership. 
Father  Bandini  chose  the  place  and  brought  to  it  some  of  the 
dissatisfied  first  settlers  of  Sunnyside,  to  whom  other  North  Ital- 
ians added  themselves.  Fruit  and  early  vegetables  have  won 
them  good  profits  and  they  have  introduced  the  grape  into  the 
region.  They  possess  fruit  evaporators,  canneries,  cider  and 
vinegar  factories.  Their  lands  have  risen  greatly  in  value,  they 
have  neat  and  clean  houses  and  a good  school,  and  have  dissi- 
pated the  prejudice  of  the  Americans.  Through  it  all,  Bandini 
has  been  a sage  counsellor  and  administrator. 

Louisiana  is  one  of  the  chief  strawberry  producing  states  in  the 
Union.  And  in  Louisiana  a leading  center  is  Independence,  a 
town  whose  economic  fife  has  been  revived  by  Sicilians.  Farm 
laborers,  hired  to  come  there  in  1890,  stayed  and  invited  friends 
and  relatives.  They  bought  lands  on  an  instalment  basis  and 
now  have  come  to  own  many.  How  to  raise  berries  they  learned 
from  their  predecessors,  and  today  their  capability  is  indisput- 
able. They  have  organized  a powerful  marketing  association 
and  in  refrigerator  cars  send  every  year  several  hundred  car- 
loads of  berries  (in  1910,  264,000  crates)  to  the  cities  of  the 
North. 

1 To  Mr.  A.  H.  Stone,  the  first  historian  of  these  comparisons,  one  surprised 
negro  said,  “ Fo’  Gawd  in  Heaven,  dat  Dago  en  his  wife  en  fo’  chiilun  wuz  pickin’ 
cotton  by  de  moonlight.  I do’  ’no’  how  it  looks  to  you,  but  I calls  dat  er  under- 
handed trick  myse’f.”  (“  Italian  Cotton-growers,”  p.  213.) 


UNITED  STATES.  AGRICULTURAL  SITUATION  369 

There  are  other  important  colonies  in  Louisiana  and  a number 
in  Texas.  Of  the  latter  I will  mention  only  Bryan,  the  largest 
Italian  colony  in  the  South.  Thither  came  railroad  laborers  and 
others  till  a population  of  two  thousand  has  been  reached.  They 
raise  buckwheat,  cotton,  and  corn  on  the  rich  bottom  lands  of  the 
Brazos  River,  which  they  have  made  valuable  by  their  labors. 
They  cultivate  sometimes  by  a sort  of  metayer  system,  sometimes 
for  a money  rent,  but  often  — as  all  aspire  to  do  — as  proprietors. 

Of  the  thousands  of  North  Italian  agriculturists  in  California, 
a large  part  have  grown  grapes  and  made  wine  for  the  Italian-Swiss 
Colony.  Started  in  1881  under  the  leadership  of  A.  Sbarboro,  a 
man  of  entrepreneur  ability,  this  colony,  after  early  reverses,  rose 
to  a place  of  national  importance.  Asti  is  its  center  and  claims  to 
have  the  largest  wine  tank  in  the  world.  Elsewhere  in  the  state 
still  other  vineyards  and  wineries  have  supplied  a product  sold 
throughout  the  country.  At  its  incipience  the  colony  issued  2250 
shares,  which  were  paid  for  in  sixty  monthly  instalments  of  one 
dollar  each  ($135,000),  but  by  1910  it  claimed  assets  of  nearly 
$3,000,000.! 

The  Italian  venture  in  farming  has  now  proceeded  far  enough 
to  allow  certain  generalizations  to  be  made.  Agricultural  labor 
for  wages  attracts  these  immigrants  only  at  certain  seasons  or  in 
times  of  transition  from  one  employment  to  another.  They  have 
been  acceptable  enough  as  farm  hands  — - excelling  the  negroes, 
for  example,  on  the  sugar  plantations  ■ — but  they  find  farm  wages 
low.  It  has  been  estimated  that  in  eight  months  of  construction 
work,  an  Italian  can  save  a fifth  more  than  in  twelve  months  of 
farm  labor.2  While  some  have  been  content  to  be  mere  “ crop- 
pers ” on  the  cotton  plantations,  most  have  wished  to  own  land. 

1 These  details  I take  from  a personal  letter  from  Mr.  Sbarboro,  who  adds  with 
pride,  “ The  Italian  farmers  are  very  industrious,  patient  and  sober,  and  although 
we  furnish  them  with  wine  at  their  meals  ad  libitum,  during  the  past  thirty  years 
we  have  never  had  an  intoxicated  person  at  the  Colony.”  For  many  years  he 
strove  to  promote  the  moderate  drinking  of  wine  and  to  check  the  agitation  for 
prohibition. 

2 “ Memorandum  degl’  istituti  italiani  di  patronato  per  gli  emigranti  in  New 
York  sulle  cause  che  ostacolano  l’avviamento  all’  agricoltura  degl’  immigranti 
italiani  negli  Stati  Uniti,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1909,  No.  8,  p.  9. 


370 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


Purchasing  on  time,  they  have  often  been  ready  to  take  uncleared 
land,  and  then  have  performed  pioneer  operations  and  worked 
incessantly  to  pay  their  debt.  When  that  has  been  accomplished, 
they  have  invested  their  further  savings  in  more  land. 

The  North  Italians  have  more  usually  possessed  qualities  neces- 
sary to  success  than  the  South  Italians,  and,  relatively  speaking, 
have  oftener  taken  up  independent  agriculture.  But  not  even 
they  have  been  disposed  to  enter  diversified  farming.  This  is  not, 
as  some  writers  have  supposed,  because  wheat  is  not  raised  in 
Italy  — on  the  contrary,  it  is  actually  the  most  important  Italian 
crop.  Rather  it  is  because  American  extensive  farming  requires 
many  acres  and  costly  equipment.  There  are  instances  in  which 
the  Italians  live  so  far  apart  that  sociability  is  difficult,  but  these 
are  few.  Generally  they  five  in  colonies,  or  near  the  cities,  even  in 
the  cities;  many  agriculturists  have  lived  in  the  North  End  of 
Boston!  In  most  cases  they  have  small  farms,  which  they  till  by 
hand  intensively.  Whereas  the  colonists  in  southern  Brazil  have 
generally  had  few  or  poor  models  about  them,  the  farmers  or 
truck  gardeners  in  the  United  States  have  learned  much  from  their 
neighbors;  the  strawberry  growers  have  apparently  acquired  their 
entire  technique  in  America.  They  exercise  economy  wherever 
possible,  and  an  uncommon  loving  care  over  their  crops,  and  they 
cultivate  the  last  comer  of  the  cleared  land.  Nearly  always,  how- 
ever, their  buildings  and  grounds  look  less  well  than  those  of  their 
neighbors  — a stinted  penny  makes  a penny  saved.  In  Louisiana 
and  in  California  they  have  resorted  to  cooperative  associations 
for  buying  and  selling  with  a degree  of  success  that  is  infrequent 
in  American  rural  economy. 

They  have  in  only  the  rarest  instances  made  considerable  for- 
tunes, but  they  have  made  a living  for  themselves,  created  a sur- 
plus, and  rendered  some  service  to  the  country.  As  in  Argentina, 
they  have  often  taken  up  lands  held  to  be  unproductive  and  have 
given  them  a value  — to  be  sure,  by  extraordinary  exertion  and 
penurious  living.  But  the  lands  which  they  have  reclaimed, 
whether  from  Nature  or  from  man’s  neglect,  have  been  main- 
tained in  such  good  condition  that  the  circumjacent  lands  have 
substantially  appreciated  in  value.  As  a farm  class  they  have 


UNITED  STATES.  AGRICULTURAL  SITUATION  371 


shown  indubitable  superiority  over  the  negroes,  in  the  several 
respects  that  really  count.  As  the  proprietors  of  lands  which  they 
have  brought  under  cultivation  they  will  some  day  win  the  re- 
wards that  come  to  owners  of  valuable  acres  which  others  would 
like  to  acquire. 

Despite  the  difficulties  and  disasters  which  sometimes  clouded 
their  earlier  days,  the  Italians  have  done  fairly  well  by  themselves 
and  the  country.  Why  do  not  more  enter  agriculture  ? Is  it 
because  of  ignorance  of  their  prospects  ? Scarcely.  No  oppor- 
tunities have  been  so  published  in  Italy,  at  least  by  the  govern- 
ment. The  consular  reports  dwell  upon  details  of  procedure  that 
in  the  case  of  other  occupations  are  ignored.  Though  the  Italian 
Labor  Office  in  New  York  has  advertised  farming  opportunities 
widely,  its  director,  several  years  ago,  announced  his  failure  to 
persuade  his  countrymen  to  avail  themselves  thereof.1  Climate 
is  a factor  which  will  doubtless  always  deter  the  South  Italians 
from  settling  in  numbers  upon  northern  farms,  but  there  its  dis- 
advantages end.2  The  cost  of  land  is  a much  more  serious  matter. 
The  public  strips  that  still  remain  are  poor  or  require  costly  work- 
ing. Abandoned  farms  and  uncleared  areas  of  a promising  sort 
require  heavy  initial  outlays,  $5oo-$iooo,  ofttimes.  It  is  an  old 
cry  in  the  Italian  reports  that  all  good  lands  have  to  be  paid  for ! 
Increase  in  acreage  value  partly  explains  why  the  old  colonies 
grow  so  little  by  immigrant  accretions.  While  day  labor  brings 
an  immediate  wage,  the  returns  in  agriculture  are  slow,  and,  what 
is  worse,  are  speculative.  Advances  may  be  necessary,  even  to 
the  cotton  “cropper”  who  otherwise  needs  little  capital.  While 
wage  earning  commonly  allows  a home  among  Italians,  the  farm 
is  often  isolated.  Not  previous  vegetable  growing  in  Italy  but  the 
fact  that  the  truck  farm  has  neighbors  explains  the  importance  of 
this  form  of  agriculture  among  the  United  States  Italians. 

In  Argentina  the  Italians  had  the  advantage  of  being  first  set- 
tlers, with  none  but  each  other  for  competitors.  In  the  United 

1 G.  di  Palma-Castiglione,  “ Ufficio  del  lavoro  per  gl’  immigrant^  italiani  in 
New  York,  Relazione,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1909,  No.  8,  p.  24. 

2 Cf.  Professor  Ravaioli,  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1904,  No.  4. 


372 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


States,  long  established  agriculturists  have  worked  out  the  suit- 
able ways  of  procedure  which  new  competitors  must  master,  a 
task  the  harder  when  capital  is  scarce  and  grasp  of  English  slight. 
It  is,  after  all,  much  the  same  situation  as  in  manufactures,  min- 
ing, and  the  rest.  There  too  the  independent  start  is  difficult 
and  hire  for  wages  is  far  the  commoner  lot. 

It  is  not  enough  to  point  out  that  the  crops  and  methods  that 
promise  well  in  the  United  States  differ  from  those  of  Italy,  but 
it  must  be  recalled  that  the  emigrating  classes  are  highly  deficient 
in  an  understanding  of  technique  — of  machines,  fertilizer,  rota- 
tion. From  being  farm  laborers  in  old  agricultural  Italy,  the 
transition  is  far  easier  to  digging  sewers  in  America  than  to  inde- 
pendent farming.  It  takes  a better  Italian  immigrant  than  the 
average  to  master  his  besetting  inertia  and  ignorance  enough  to 
carry  him  to  success.  Half  a century  ago,  and  less,  the  Scandi- 
navians and  Germans,  with  more  of  self-reliance  than  the  Italians 
have  shown,  made  their  way  directly  to  the  remote  interior  of  the 
country,  to  the  frontier  often  enough,  learned  the  use  of  machinery 
and  became  model  farmers.  Like  the  Italians  in  Argentina,  they 
measured  out  and  fixed  the  pace  which  later  comers  must  follow. 
The  North  Italians  — witness  Argentina  and  the  colony  at  Genoa, 
Wisconsin  — seem  better  fitted  for  general  and  diversified  farm- 
ing than  do  the  South  Italians,  and  if  they  predominated  among 
our  immigrants  from  Italy,  the  problem  of  agricultural  adaptation 
would  be  much  lightened. 

Although  it  is  far  from  clear  that  in  the  present  circumstances 
of  the  United  States  a diversion  of  Italian  labor  from  industry  to 
the  farm  would  be  of  advantage,  yet  colonization  companies  or 
philanthropic  persons  or  associations  have  still  an  opportunity  for 
interesting  experiments.  Inexpensive  land  — so  that  the  poor 
can  buy  it;  land  situate  in  healthful  parts  of  the  Atlantic,  IMiddle 
and  Southern  states,  and  California  — so  that  a rigorous  winter 
may  be  avoided;  cultivation  upon  small  plots  of  ground  — so 
that  neighborly  association  may  be  possible;  intensive  cultiva- 
tion, or  instruction  and  guidance  in  extensive  methods  so  that 
tradition  may  count  or  ignorance  be  overcome;  these  are  desir- 


UNITED  STATES.  AGRICULTURAL  SITUATION  373 


able  and  more  or  less  essential.  Settlement  must  be  by  families, 
such  as  have  not  yet  caught  the  glitter  of  American  city  life  and 
are  composed  of  individuals  more  than  usually  valid  in  body  and 
mind.  Direction  and  oversight  must  be  good.  Tontitown  suc- 
ceeded because  it  had  a true  leader,  New  Palermo  failed  because 
it  had  not.1  Those,  finally,  who  enter  the  colonies  must  belong 
to  that  minority  of  Italians  who  have  made  up  their  minds  not  to 
return  to  Italy. 

A century  ago  manufactures  lagged  because  free  land  was  an 
alternative  to  employment.  Today,  let  us  be  reminded,  agricul- 
tural colonies  may  thrive  slowly  because  industry  is  a vocifer- 
ous alternative  which  tempts  away  from  the  farm  even  the  long 
established  American-born  whites  and  negroes,  and  may  in  future 
tempt  away  the  American-born  children  of  the  cultivating 
Italians. 

1 On  the  collapse  of  New  Palermo,  see  A.  Rossi,  “ Per  la  tutela  degli  italiani 
negli  Stati  Uniti,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1904,  No.  16,  pp.  74-80. 


CHAPTER  XX 


UNITED  STATES.  IV.  THE  ITALIAN  EXPERIENCE 

Only  incidentally  or  by  indirection  have  we  so  far  dealt  with  the 
question  which  most  of  all  interests  our  immigrants,  Have  they 
profited  by  coming  ? Has  the  game,  for  them,  been  worth  the 
candle  ? In  the  continuance  and  expansion  of  their  immigration, 
as  of  all  immigration,  Americans  have  been  wont  to  read  but  one 
answer  — it  is  Eldorado  that  lures  and  is  found. 

In  truth  there  are  impressive  evidences  of  success.  Consider 
alone  the  remittances  of  money  to  Italy,  mute  testimony  to  the 
accumulation  of  a surplus.  They  aggregated  in  1907,  according 
to  a widely  quoted  estimate  by  the  Immigration  Commission, 
$85, 000, 000. 1 I cannot  believe,  however,  that  this  figure  — which 
may  serve  as  an  example  — justifies  the  inferences  commonly 
drawn  from  it.  Like  1906,  the  year  1907  was  one  of  extraordinary 
prosperity,  when  wages  were  high  and  employment  was  constant. 
With  irregular  work  and  lower  wages  the  margin  beyond  expenses 
must  shrink.  Of  the  $85,000,000,  the  best  ascertained  part  was 
some  $52,000,000  transmitted  by  the  correspondents  of  immi- 
grant banks.  In  1908  this  part  shrank  to  $23,000,000  and  during 
the  first  six  months  of  1909  to  $8,000,000.  Clearly,  again,  the 
per  capita  remittances  of  nearly  two  million  persons  were  not 
high.  When,  further,  the  large  proportion  of  males  and  the  still 
larger  proportion  of  adults  among  the  immigrants  are  borne  in 
mind,  it  becomes  patent  that  the  remittances  are  mainly  not 
sheer  savings  but  go  to  pay  for  the  current  maintenance  of  fam- 
ilies dwelling  abroad.  The  best  that  can  be  said  for  the  procedure 
is  that  maintenance  in  Italy  is  at  lower  prices  than  in  the  United 
States:  the  birds  of  passage  are  canny  birds. 

1 Immigration  Commission,  xxxvii,  pp.  261-2S8.  Cf.  C.  F.  Speare,  “ What 
America  Pays  Europe  for  Immigrant  Labor,”  North  American  Review,  January, 
1908,  p.  107;  for  earlier  periods,  Ottolenghi,  p.  382;  and  Emig.  e Col.,  1893,  p.  444. 
Annually  the  Boll.  Emig.  records  the  amounts  sent  via  the  Banco  di  Napoli’s 
agencies. 


374 


UNITED  STATES.  THE  ITALIAN  EXPERIENCE  375 


What  is  saved  by  Italians  who  have  made  this  country  their 
home  would  seem  to  be  better  indicated  in  figures  of  property 
ownership.  Unluckily  such  as  exist  are  few  and  ill-based,  and  are 
more  likely  than  most  estimates  to  be  exaggerated.  In  1902,  for 
instance,  it  was  claimed  that  the  Italians  of  New  York  owned 
$60,000,000,  about  $400  for  every  man,  woman,  and  child  enu- 
merated in  1900;  but  the  estimate,  made  almost  without  scientific 
criteria,  was  surely  an  exaggeration.1  Of  the  total,  $15,000,000 
was  said  to  be  in  savings  banks,  but  the  popular  Italian  Savings 
Bank  had  in  191 5 only  $4,500,000  in  deposits.2  At  the  same  time, 
two-thirds  of  the  houses  in  the  Little  Italy  section  of  Philadelphia 
were  supposed  to  belong  to  Italians; 3 and  their  compatriots  on 
the  Pacific  coast  were  held  to  be  worth  $2 2, 600, 000. 4 

It  is  not  alone  the  fact  that  such  statistics  as  these  do  not 
generally  rest  on  itemized  appraisals  that  invalidates  them,  or 
that  they  generally  say  nothing  of  offsetting  indebtedness,  which 
is  common  when  real  property  is  in  question.  It  is  even  more  the 
fact  that  they  are  indiscriminate  in  lumping  together  the  invest- 
ments or  the  gains  of  both  great  and  small,  so  conveying  to  many 
minds  a misleading  notion  of  average  well-being.  In  the  grand 
total  are  the  costly  investments  in  real  estate  and  plant  of  success- 
ful American  branches  of  Italian  firms.  There  are  also  the  riches 
of  the  broadly  successful  immigrants,  an  interesting  group  observ- 
able even  in  early  days,  as  witness  the  cases  of  Delmonico  (a 
Ticinese  Italian)  of  New  York,  of  Ghio  of  St.  Louis,  of  Lonato  of 
New  Orleans; B and  also  for  later  days  one  could  name  Saitta,  once 
of  Palermo,  who  has  been  called  the  “ lemon  king  ” of  New  York, 
Di  Giogio,  the  “banana  king,”6  and  Sbarboro  of  San  Francisco, 

1 Prat,  “ Gli  italiani,”  etc.,  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1902,  No.  2,  p.  28. 

2 See  note  in  II  Carroccio,  August,  1915,  p.  58.  Some  637  houses,  mostly  tene- 
ment, were  registered  in  Italian  names  and  worth  $19,301,110,  according  to  P. 
Acritelli,  “ II  contribute  degli  italiani  alia  prosperity  materiale  della  citta  di  New 
York,”  L’ltalia  Coloniale,  January-February,  1904,  p.  39.  Real  estate  is  the  chief 
form  of  Italian  investment. 

3 A.  DalP  Aste  Brandolini,  “ L’immigrazione  e le  colonie  italiane  nella  Pennsyl- 
vania,” Boll.  Emig.,  1902,  No.  4,  p.  63. 

4 Serra,  p.  51.  On  Rhode  Island,  see  Michele,  p.  14.  For  a decade  earlier,  cf. 
Emig.  e Col.,  1893,  pp.  443,  449,  451-453- 

5 Carpi,  ii,  pp.  238-241.  6 See  New  York  Times,  November  2,  1913. 


376  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

let  us  call  him  the  “ wine  king  ” ! (Wherever  Croesus  lives, 
though  the  mass  go  naked,  the  average  wealth,  strictly  speaking, 
is  high.)  In  trade  the  largest  fortunes  have  been  made,  and  many 
persons  have  risen  to  comfort.1  But  innumerable  tradespeople 
have  had  to  be  glad  if,  year  in  and  year  out,  they  could  make 
both  ends  meet;  and  a heavy  majority  of  all  the  Italians  have 
worked  for  hire  at  wages  that  could  never  bare  a primrose  path 
to  riches. 

It  is  no  view  of  general  comfort  that  the  history  of  the  Italians 
reveals.  The  pictures  that  cut  across  the  years  are  somber.  If 
brightness  and  cheer  show  in  them,  it  is  as  candles  scattered, 
impotent  to  make  the  darkness  day.  Something  has  already  been 
said  of  the  living  conditions  of  the  Italians  in  the  earlier  period.2 
Until  the  final  decade  of  the  century  not  much  description  ap- 
pears; the  situation  then  recorded  can  hardly  have  been  worse 
than  what  went  before.  Giuseppe  Giacosa  published  in  1892  a 
poignant  recital  of  the  life  of  disillusion  and  misery  lived  by  the 
Italians  of  New  York  and  Chicago.3  New  York,  Chicago,  Phila- 
delphia, and  Baltimore  contained  in  1890,  as  they  have  since  con- 
tained, about  a third  of  all  the  Italians  in  the  country.  In  an 
elaborate  statistical  study  of  their  slum  populations  made  by  the 
United  States  Commissioner  of  Labor,  the  Italians  were  showm 
to  be  living  in  deplorable  poverty; 4 and  not  many  had  yet  been 

1 Most  of  the  volume  Gli  italiani  negli  Stati  Uniti,  cit.,  is  devoted  to  ample 
accounts  of  the  successful.  For  California  alone,  see  Patrizi,  op.  cit.  Many  evi- 
dences of  success  can  be  read  in  the  Italian  Business  Directory,  5th  ed.,  1911-12,  New 
York,  1911;  and,  for  a date  nearly  three  decades  earlier,  in  Guida  Metelli,  pp.  317- 
344- 

2 Cf.  also,  for  1879  and  1880,  Industrial  Commission,  xv,  pp.  472  f. 

3 “ Gli  italiani  a New  York  ed  a Chicago,”  Nuova  Antologia,  August  16,  1892, 
pp.  618  -649;  and  “ Chicago  e la  sua  colonia  italiana  ” in  the  same  journal,  March  1, 
1893,  pp.  15-33.  See  also  his  volume,  Impressioni  d' America,  Milan,  1908. 

Some  cursory  consular  reports  made  in  these  years,  though  they  found  the  artisan 
and  trade  classes  to  be  doing  well,  and  common  labor  to  be  in  demand  in  some 
places,  discovered  a slack  or  very  low  demand  for  common  labor  in  other  places 
— in  Louisiana,  for  example,  the  Italians  could  hardly  earn  a living.  See  Emig.  e 
Col.,  1893,  P-  463- 

4 United  States  Commissioner  of  Labor,  Seventh  Special  Report,  The  Slums  of 
Great  Cities,  Washington,  1894. 


UNITED  STATES.  THE  ITALIAN  EXPERIENCE  377 


able  to  move  into  better  districts.  Presently  began  a prolonged 
period  of  depression,  bringing  a halt  especially  in  those  kinds  of 
work  that  the  Italians  performed.  When  the  Commissioner  of 
Labor  undertook  a detailed  study  of  the  Italians  in  Chicago,  it 
was  to  make  disheartening  exposures  regarding  their  wages  and 
general  conditions  of  employment  and  living.1  After  the  revival 
of  industry,  the  Industrial  Commission  made  a report  (1901). 
Italian  tradespeople  were  making  progress,  but  the  common 
laborers,  though  thrifty,  were  not  advancing.  It  was  mainly  “ the 
compulsion  of  extreme  poverty  ” that  led  parents  to  take  their 
children  from  school.2 

These  are  only  the  briefest  indications  of  some  of  the  pictures 
that  reveal  the  more  general  aspects  of  Italian  life  at  or  before  the 
turn  of  the  century.  I do  not  believe  that  the  situation  of  most 
Italians  in  the  twentieth  century  can  be  called  a happy  one, 
though  it  may  have  been  better  than  what  went  before.  Let  us 
try  to  single  out  some  of  its  principal  elements. 

All  irregularity  of  employment  is  a problem.  We  found  it  not 
to  be  of  crucial  consequence  in  agricultural  South  America,  but 
it  is  so  in  a land  where  the  mass  of  the  immigrants  are  in  industry, 
mining,  and  construction  work,  employed  at  wages.  For  the  com- 
mon laborers  and  building- trades  workers  the  winter  is  a season 
of  much  idleness;  if  the  South  is  an  exception,  it  is  also  that  part 
of  the  country  whither  few  Italians,  relatively  speaking,  go.  Many 
return  to  Italy,  but  most  stay.  They  shovel  snow,  pick  up  casual 
jobs  of  whatever  sort,  and  mainly  live  upon  saved  earnings,  often 
the  fruits  of  a summer’s  privation.  Southern  railroad  contractors, 
unable  to  compete  with  Northern  roads  in  engaging  Italian  la- 
borers during  the  summer,  have  sometimes  got  them  for  lower 
wages  in  the  winter,  the  more  readily  because  Italians  have  no 
love  for  the  chill  North. 

1 United  States  Commissioner  of  Labor,  Ninth  Special  Report,  The  Italians  in 
Chicago,  Washington,  1897.  Of  this  report  a reviewer,  A.  Bertolini,  wrote  in  the 
Giornale  degli  Economisti  for  June,  1898,  “ it  seems  a cry  of  anguish  and  entreaty 
that  our  brothers  send  to  the  mother  country  from  which  only  greater  misery  has 
expelled  them.” 

2 Industrial  Commission,  xv,  pp.  474  f. 


37§ 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


But  the  winter’s  unemployment  is  only  one  kind.  There  is  the 
cyclical  depression,  which  gives  often  but  a faint  forewarning, 
little  heeded.  The  difficult  thing  about  such  a time  is  that,  unless 
it  comes  with  a thunderclap  as  in  1907,  nobody,  least  of  all  the 
humbler  workman,  knows  whether  it  will  be  merely  transitory  or 
will  make  a sojourn.  Those  immigrants  who  can  set  their  affairs 
in  order  scamper  homeward.  What  an  outflocking  was  seen  in 
1907  and  again  in  the  war  year  1914 ! Too  often  the  path  to  Italy 
is  blocked.  One  must  suffer  mutely  in  America.  Unemployment 
is  worse  than  for  one’s  American  neighbors.  Two-thirds  of  the 
appeals  for  aid  made  by  Italians  in  the  cities  were  found  by  the 
Immigration  Commission  to  be  for  unemployment  — a high  pro- 
portion. In  its  fiscal  year  1914-15  the  Associated  Charities  of 
Boston  dealt  with  40  per  cent  more  new  cases  than  in  the  previous 
year;  but  in  the  principal  Italian  district  the  increase  was  300  per 
cent.  Notably  in  the  first  war  year,  but  time  and  again  in  the 
previous  dozen  years,  Italian  consuls  reported  to  their  govern- 
ment that  unemployment  was  grave,  or  they  recommended  that 
emigration  to  particular  regions,  or  to  all,  be  discouraged,  or  even 
suspended.  How  serious  an  effect  upon  earnings  even  a normal 
idleness  may  have  can  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  in  the  coal 
mines  of  Illinois,  Indiana,  and  Ohio,  in  the  three  fairly  typical 
years  1911-13,  the  annual  workdays  averaged  only  about  two 
hundred.  In  the  silk  mills,  the  Bureau  of  Labor  found  the  South 
Italians  to  be  unemployed  more  than  any  other  group.1 

Since  the  great  mass  of  the  Italians  work  for  wages,  the  rates 
which  they  receive  are  in  some  sort  an  index  of  their  success.  It 
is,  however,  neither  possible  nor  necessary  that  our  survey  of 
rates  should  be  highly  inclusive,  particularly  since  not  many 
grades  of  workpeople  are  in  question.  Home  workers  in  the  cloth- 
ing trade  have  received  about  five  cents  an  hour;  men  workers 
in  the  same  trade,  perhaps  $8  or  $9  per  week.  Shop  operatives 
in  confectionery,  artificial  flower  making  and  allied  trades  have 
been  paid  in  recent  years  $5-$7  a week,  in  the  case  of  girls  and 

1 Report  on  Woman  and  Child  Wage-Earners,  iv,  p.  271.  It  is  scarcely  necessary 
to  detail  the  numerous  references  in  Boll.  Emig.  to  fluctuation  of  employment. 
Cf.  Odencrantz,  pp.  1 14-124. 


UNITED  STATES.  THE  ITALIAN  EXPERIENCE  379 


women.  Half  the  boy  and  men  confectioners  received  less  than 
$10  a week.  Common  labor  in  the  Eastern  states,  for  years  be- 
fore the  war,  was  given  $1.50  per  ten-hour  day,  a little  more  or 
a little  less,  sometimes  $1.25.  In  the  cities  construction  work- 
men might  secure  $2.  Unionized  hodcarriers  have  been  paid  $3- 
$4,  non-unionized,  $2-$3  for  a longer  day.  Miners’  helpers  have 
made  $2-$3>  Skilled  miners  (the  minority)  have  been  paid  $3~$4, 
and  other  skilled  workmen  the  same  or  more.  These  are  samples 
only,  selected  from  the  more  characteristic  trades  and  supple- 
menting various  figures  given  in  the  narrative  above.  Though  the 
rates  have  been  higher  in  recent  years  than  fifteen  or  twenty 
years  ago,  they  contend  with  strikingly  higher  prices  of  food  and 
other  necessaries. 

What  can  be  saved  ? Much  depends  upon  the  year’s  income 
and  that,  limited  by  unemployment,  is  hard  to  gauge.  Only  the 
Immigration  Commission  has  made  the  attempt.  In  more  than 
a thousand  families  of  South  Italians  in  the  cities  it  found  the 
male  heads  to  average  $390  per  year;  more  than  half  earned  less 
than  $400,  and  only  2.4  per  cent  earned  $800  or  over.  But  of 
course  the  husband’s  earnings  were  often  supplemented.  In 
another  study  by  the  Commission  of  households  of  South  Italians 
employed  in  manufacturing  and  mining,  the  earnings  of  the  entire 
family  averaged  $569 ; half  of  the  families  earned  less  than  $500, 
a sixth  less  than  $300.  The  South  Italian  average  was  the  lowest 
in  twenty-two  nationalities;  the  North  Italian  was  much  higher.1 
At  best,  the  remuneration  for  unskilled  and  factory  labor  is 
almost  incredibly  low.  American  minimum- wage  commissions 
have  put  at  $400-1450  the  sum  necessary  to  the  decent  main- 
tenance of  a single  girl  worker  living  independently;  and  a pre-war 
estimate  carefully  prepared  for  the  New  York  Factory  Commis- 
sion put  at  $876  the  amount  needed  in  New  York  City  to  main- 
tain a normal  family  without  any  savings,  and  in  Buffalo,  the 
city  where  maintenance  was  cheapest,  $722.2  Living  upon  less 
than  these  incomes,  a family  may  be  assumed  to  be  spending  its 
human  capital. 

1 Immigration  Commission,  i,  pp.  412,  767. 

2 Fourth  Report  of  Factory  Investigating  Commission,  iv,  pp.  1668,  1671;  cf.  pp. 
1609,  1619. 


380 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


By  Italian  students  it  has  been  estimated  that  a single  worker, 
unencumbered  by  a family,  can  save  as  much  as  $40  in  a month’s 
pay  of  $50;  but  this  is  without  allowing  for  expenditures  on  such 
items  as  clothing,  beer  or  travelling.  In  a full  year  such  a worker 
is  more  likely  to  save  less  than  $150-1250  than  he  is  to  save 
more,  and  many  a one  has  spent  his  treasure  by  the  time  he  has 
regained  his  Italy.1  Earning  more  than  the  South  Italian,  the 
North  Italian  worker  spends  more,  and  often  saves  even  less. 
For  the  South  Italian  especially,  saving  nearly  always  involves 
pinched  consumption.  Our  cities  vie  with  each  other  in  bidding 
for  the  entertainment  of  fraternal  or  business  organizations  as- 
sembling in  convention;  but  no  small  town  gains  by  the  arrival 
in  its  neighborhood  of  the  Italian  construction  gangs.  The 
Southern  storekeepers,  the  Immigration  Commission  reported, 
prefer  the  negro  in  agriculture  to  the  Italian. 

No  one  can  be  said  to  understand  the  economic  conditions  of 
this  population  who  fails  to  note  the  important  role  played  by  the 
women.  The  wives  of  the  South  Italian  men,  the  Immigration 
Commission  found,  are  more  likely  to  be  gainfully  employed 
than  are  any  others.2  As  workers  and  economizers  they  are  in- 
defatigable. In  the  anthracite  districts  they  gather  coal  on  the 
culm  banks,  or  pick  up  brush  in  the  woods.  On  the  farm,  they 
work  from  morning  till  evening.  In  the  cities  they  toil  for  hire. 
Not  marriage,  it  has  been  said,  but  only  child-bearing  interferes 
with  their  work.  In  the  manufacture  of  men’s  clothing,  three- 
eighths  of  the  Italian  women  workers  have  been  found  to  be 
married,  a rate  nearly  four  times  that  of  other  peoples;  in  the 
silk  manufacture  Italian  married  women  were  three  times  those 
in  the  general  rate;  in  the  metal  trades  they  held  a similar  place. 
In  the  men’s  clothing  manufacture,  three  out  of  four  married 
women  employed  were  Italian,  sometimes  women  of  sixteen  or 
seventeen,  expecting  to  stay  in  the  trade  for  years. 

1 For  the  estimates  see  di  Palma-Castiglione,  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1915,  No.  6,  p.  30, 
and  1915,  No.  7;  Castigliano,  p.  17. 

* Immigration  Commission,  i,  p.  414. 


UNITED  STATES.  THE  ITALIAN  EXPERIENCE  3 8 1 


Their  wages  are  low,  probably  the  lowest  paid  to  any  women. 
Why  do  they  work  ? Often  because  their  husbands  are  idle.  After 
five  to  seven  months  of  common  labor,  a job  is  hard  to  find,  or  the 
cold  deters.  A Pole  is  more  likely  to  work  twelve  months  than  a 
Sicilian  is,  braving  and  enduring  the  cold;  in  Buffalo  the  contrast 
of  the  two  nationalities  has  been  marked.  The  low  wages  received 
by  the  men  are  a second  factor  in  the  wives’  working,  and  a third 
factor  is  the  overweening  desire  to  save.  These  all  together  exert 
tremendous  pressure. 

That  the  wives  so  often  toil  in  the  home  is  partly  because  they 
would  turn  to  account  odd  moments,  but  often  it  is  because  the 
husbands  are  unwilling  (in  a non-farming  country)  that  their 
wives  should  go  forth  to  earn.  There  is  here  a manifestation  of 
that  traditional  reluctance  to  have  their  wives  work  which, 
earlier  in  this  volume,  we  observed  to  prevail  in  Sicily.  There  is 
also  a conception  of  family  living  in  which  privacy  and  intimacy 
are  deemed  quintessential.  The  Italian  girl’s  life,  for  instance,  is 
inseparable  from  that  of  her  family.  She  takes  over  many  of  her 
mother’s  tasks.  Her  wedding  becomes,  what  her  christening  was, 
a great  family  event.  That  she  should  enter  a factory  at  all  is  a 
concession  to  American  conventions,  but  the  factory  is  certain  to 
He  near  her  home.  What  the  girl  earns  is  of  course  a welcome 
addition  to  the  family  income.  And  both  married  women  and 
girls  are  ready  to  work  for  wages,  indeed  to  underbid  others,  in 
order  to  be  sure  of  having  employment.1 

It  is  in  the  housing  of  our  Italians,  more  perhaps  than  anywhere 
else,  that  their  characteristic  impulses  show.  Their  task  is  to 
earn,  to  five,  and  to  save.  All  three  may  be  juggled  somewhat, 
and  the  evidence  of  the  juggling  — though  uncontrollable  ele- 
ments are  also  involved  — is  in  the  house  that  is  inhabited.  Con- 
sider first  the  cities,  since  there  the  mass  Uve.  New  York  has 
several  Itafian  centers:  about  Mulberry  Street  on  the  East  Side, 

1 On  the  lives  of  the  Italian  women,  see  cited  volumes  of  Immigration  Com- 
mission, report  on  Woman  and  Child  Wage-Earners,  Willett,  van  Kleeck,  de’  Rossi, 
and  Odencrantz;  also  a chapter  by  Josephine  Roche  in  R.  S.  True,  The  Neglected 
Girl,  New  York,  1914,  and  K.  Anthony,  Mothers  Who  Must  Earn,  New  York,  1914. 


382 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


about  Bleecker  Street  in  the  lower  West,  around  Jefferson  Park  in 
Harlem,  in  the  Bronx  about  150th  Street  and  Morris  Avenue,  near 
Bedford  Park  and  200th  Street,  in  Brooklyn  between  Atlantic 
Avenue  and  Hamilton  Avenue,  in  Flatbush,  in  Williamsburg,  and 
other  places.  In  Philadelphia  there  is  one  great  square-shaped 
district.  In  Boston  there  is  the  North  End  and  part  of  East 
Boston.  In  Chicago  there  are  the  17th,  19th,  and  2 2d  wards. 
Let  these  suffice  for  examples  of  an  extraordinary  degree  of  con- 
centration in  the  Italian  settlements.  Although  a secondary 
migration  may  carry  the  more  successful  Italians  elsewhere,  the 
first  halting  places  are  generally  the  old,  even  the  oldest  sections, 
where  the  houses  are  superannuated  or  in  poor  repair,  some- 
times remodelled,  and  generally  ill-adapted  to  the  demands 
made  upon  them  by  a people  accustomed  to  living  largely  out 
of  doors. 

Who  that  has  sauntered  through  these  colonies  can  forget 
them  ? Who,  since  they  are  unique,  can  describe  them  ? An 
ant  hill  is  like  them  or  a beehive  — but  too  soon  all  analogies 
break  down!  Where  East  Houston,  Mott,  Prince,  and  Elizabeth 
streets  come  together  in  New  York,  making  one  block,  fairly 
long  but  very  narrow,  dwell  3500  people,  1100  to  the  acre.  It 
disputes  with  few  other  blocks  the  dismal  honor  of  being  the  most 
populous  spot  on  earth.  Its  tenements  rise  four  or  five  stories  into 
the  air  but  each  story  bursts,  as  if  the  inward  pressure  were  too 
great,  into  a balcony.  The  street  below  is  at  once  playground 
and  place  of  business:  one  threads  one’s  way  betwixt  push  carts 
and  stands,  past  little  children  and  quite  as  little  old  women, 
whose  black  eyes  scintillate  above  their  bronzed  Sicilian  cheeks. 
Here  doctor  and  midwife  might  make  a living  while  scarcely 
leaving  the  block.  (One  child  in  nine  dies  before  the  age  of  five.) 
On  each  floor,  as  a rule,  are  four  “ flats,”  often  of  two  rooms:  one 
room  serving  as  kitchen,  dining  room,  and  general  living  room,  the 
other  as  bedroom.  “ There  is  not,”  says  a government  report,  “ a 
bath  tub  in  this  solid  block,  unless  there  be  some  in  the  Children’s 
Aid  Society  Building,  and  only  one  family  has  a hot  water  range. 
In  one  of  the  buildings  there  are  radiators  in  the  hall,  but  the  fur- 
nace has  never  been  lighted  in  the  recollection  of  the  present 


UNITED  STATES.  THE  ITALIAN  EXPERIENCE  383 

tenants.  All  halls  are  cold  and  dirty  the  greater  part  of  the  time, 
and  most  of  them  are  dark.”  1 Neither  bath  tub  nor  stove  is  an 
institution  which  these  immigrants  have  known  in  Italy,  but  in 
America  both  climate  and  the  perils  of  crowded  living  make  their 
omission  costly. 

Twenty-five  years  ago,  it  is  worth  recalling,  Jacob  Riis  opened 
an  attack  upon  these  houses  in  New  York.  He  said  then  that  the 
Italians  sought  out  the  cheapest  — the  oldest  and  worst  — tene- 
ments. Wherever  they  went,  as  in  Harlem,  the  houses  sank  to  the 
Italian  level.  They  were  content  with  a pigsty  and  let  the  rent 
collector  rob  them,  so  were  acceptable  tenants.  In  the  Mulberry 
Street  Bend  were  the  most  squalid  tenements;  once  cow  bells 
tinkled  there,  but  now  the  bells  announced  the  home-coming  rag- 
pickers’ carts.  In  a single  block,  in  a specimen  year,  there  had 
been  155  deaths  of  children  under  five.  “ Stale  bread  was  the  one 
article  the  health  officers,  after  a raid  on  the  market,  once  re- 
ported as  ‘ not  unwholesome.’  ” The  Italian’s  stale  beer  dives 
were  his  worst  social  offence,  for  there  he  made  a profit  out  of 
human  wrecks.  His  universal  vice  was  his  dirtiness;  he  was 
dirtier  than  the  negro,  and  the  Bend  was  “ scarce  dirtier  ” than 
the  Little  Italy  of  Harlem.2 

Today  the  occupations  are  different,  but  the  crowding  and  the 
dirt  remain.  Who  shall  say  that  they  are  less  ? Most  tene- 
ments hold  ten  to  thirty  families.  Many  families  take  boarders. 
A whole  family,  or  eight  or  ten  men,  may  sleep  in  a room.  On  hot 
nights  every  fire  escape  becomes  a bedstead.  In  the  winter  the 
windows  are  shut  in  the  unheated  rooms.  The  distinction  be- 
tween workrooms  and  living  rooms  vanishes.  “ You  may  find 
work  in  a kitchen  where  lodgers  sleep ; on  the  bed  mixed  with 
the  family’s  soiled  bedding  and  clothing  — and  even  loaves  of 
bread  and  other  food  in  the  bed,  too  — or  on  the  dirty  floor, 
on  greasy  tables  with  food,  on  chairs  — anywhere.  Nothing 
could  be  added  to  or  taken  from  many  of  these  homes  to  increase 

1 Woman  and  Child  Wage-Earners,  ii,  p.  263. 

2 J.  A.  Riis,  How  the  Other  Half  Lives,  esp.  chs.  v-vi;  The  Children  of  the  Poor 
(New  York,  1892),  esp.  cb.  xi.  I cannot  forbear  to  add  his  book  of  tales,  Out  of 
Mulberry  Street,  New  York,  1898. 


384  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

their  squalor.”  1 It  is  not  surprising  that  ten  years  ago  the  Italian 
government  subsidized  the  New  York  Exhibit  on  Congestion  of 
Population. 

To  observe  how  many  of  the  New  York  conditions  are  re- 
produced in  other  cities  is  almost  startling.  Philadelphia  has  the 
same  crowding  of  families,  the  same  dark  rooms,  only  the  tene- 
ments are  smaller.  In  Boston  there  has  been  much  congestion. 
An  investigation  into  the  Lawrence  strike  found  the  South  Ital- 
ians to  be  living  in  the  most  crowded  places,  almost  always  with 
no  other  heat  than  that  of  a kitchen  stove,  and  a third  of  the 
members  of  their  households  were  lodgers  or  boarders;  sometimes 
two  to  four  famihes  maintained  one  household.  In  two  blocks  in 
the  Seventeenth  ward  of  Chicago,  containing  877  people,  the 
municipal  Department  of  Public  Welfare,  two  or  three  years  ago, 
found  only  two  bath  tubs.  Darkness  and  dirt  were  plentiful.  One 
apartment  of  less  than  350  cubic  feet  held  three  adults  and  three 
children;  the  instance  is  extreme  but  others  approached  it. 
Kitchens  were  used  as  sleeping  rooms,  by  many  famihes.  So  one 
might  go  on,  with  Paterson,  Buffalo,  Milwaukee,  St.  Paul,  Pitts- 
burgh, and  other  places.  In  the  smaller  centers  the  houses  are  of 
one  story  or  two,  but  congestion  and  dirt  are  ever  the  Italian 
badge — not  their  badge  exclusively,  for  other  groups  wear  it  also, 
but  none  by  a better  title. 

In  the  cities,  the  Immigration  Commission  found  nearly  a 
quarter  of  the  South  Italian  households  to  be  occupying  two 
rooms  each,  and  nearly  three-eighths,  three  rooms;  a palpably 
lower  allotment  than  that  of  other  immigrants.  Its  investigation 
into  the  households  of  persons  engaged  in  manufacturing  and 
mining  found  262  South  Italians  in  each  100  sleeping  rooms,  and 
only  slightly  fewer  North  Italians;  the  latter  were  twice  as  com- 
monly owners  of  their  homes  as  the  former.  More  than  a third  of 
both  sorts  received  lodgers  or  boarders.  Of  the  quality  of  shelter 
purchased  an  index  may  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  average 
rental  per  person  per  month  was  about  $1.50. 

An  immigration  so  mobile  as  the  Italian  and  containing  so  many 
men  either  without  families  or  separated  from  them  must  often 
1 Woman  and  Child  Wage-Earners,  ii,  p.  296. 


UNITED  STATES.  THE  ITALIAN  EXPERIENCE  385 


be  unconventional  in  its  housing.  Partly  because  of  expense  but 
more  because  of  the  human  desire  for  the  sociability,  or  at  least 
the  presence,  of  a normally  constituted  family,  the  single  man 
avoids  a hotel  and  becomes  a lodger.  He  pays,  maybe,  $3  a 
month  for  a bed,  the  necessary  personal  laundry,  and  the  use  of 
the  kitchen.  He  buys  his  food,  but  may  pay  the  padrona  to 
cook  it.  How  can  he  do  otherwise  than  invade  the  privacy  of  the 
family  ? 

In  construction  work  there  must  be  the  willingness  to  utilize 
many  temporary  devices.  Sometimes  the  men  sleep  in  railroad 
cars,  or  improvise  the  season’s  domicile  out  of  boards.  The 
shanty  bunk  house  is  typical;  usually  25  cents  is  paid  as  a weekly 
rental  to  the  “ boss  ” who  also  sells  food  and  liquor.  Or  a kind  of 
cooperative  arrangement  arises,  the  workmen  choosing  one  of 
their  number,  in  rotation,  to  be  the  commissary  and  cook.  In  its 
best  form  this  system  suggests  a little  the  camp  life  which  the 
youths  of  our  better-to-do  classes  welcome  for  a summer’s  recrea- 
tion. But  the  analogy  quickly  ends.  For  the  day’s  toil  is  fati- 
guing, the  night’s  quarters  are  crowded,  the  season  is  long,  and  cold 
and  damp  impair  the  health  of  the  workers.  In  berry  and  vege- 
table picking  and  the  canneries,  when  the  work  is  not  only  sea- 
sonal but  deals  with  perishable  things,  men,  women,  and  children, 
sometimes  babies,  are  often  huddled  closely  in  quarters  loosely 
put  together  and  unsanitary.1 

1 So  much  has  been  written  on  the  housing  of  Italians  that  selection,  apart  from 
a few  main  references,  like  the  Immigration  Commission  and  the  report  on  Woman 
and  Child  Wage-Earners,  is  difficult.  I have  of  course  drawn  somewhat  on  my  own 
observation.  See  the  cited  works  of  Sheridan,  Butler,  de’  Rossi,  Palma-Castiglione 
(in  Boll.  Emig.,  1915,  No.  6),  Castigliano,  and  A.  Bernardy,  “Sulle  condizioni  delle 
donne  e dei  fanciulli  italiani  negli  Stati  del  Centro  e dell’  Ovest  della  Confederazione 
del  Nord-America,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1911,  No.  1,  pp.  52-85  (cf.  her  Italia  randagia, 
Turin,  1913,  pp.  49-55,  205-214).  See  also  Massachusetts,  Report  of  the  Commis- 
sion on  Immigration,  Boston,  1914  — pp.  69-73  are  on  the  construction  camps;  R. 
W.  De  Forest  and  L.  Veiller  (ed.),  The  Tenement  House  Problem,  2 vols.,  New  York, 
1903;  T.  J.  Jones,  The  Sociology  of  a New  York  City  Block,  New  York,  1904;  F.  A. 
Craig,  A Study  of  the  Housing  and  Social  Conditions  in  Selected  Districts  of  Phila- 
delphia, Philadelphia,  1915;  M.  de  Biasi,  “ Colonie  italiane  d’Ameriea:  Filadclfia,” 
L’ Italia  Coloniale,  January-February,  1904,  pp.  48-58;  Chicago,  First  Semi-Annual 
Report  of  the  Department  of  Public  Welfare,  Chicago,  1915 — pp.  74-94  deal  wholly 
with  an  Italian  district;  G.  P.  Norton,  “ Chicago  Housing  Conditions:  Two 


386  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

Somewhat  the  defects  of  housing  are  the  inevitable  result  of  low 
wages,  somewhat  they  follow  from  the  desire  to  save  or  from 
sheer  ignorance  of  alternatives.  The  same  factors,  and  one  be- 
sides — the  preference  due  to  custom  — determine  the  diet  of  the 
Italians. 

Not  many  years  ago,  Mr.  Sheridan  wrote,  in  his  careful  com- 
parative study  of  unskilled  workmen:  “ The  bills  of  fare  of  the 
Italian  laborers  at  their  commissaries  in  the  United  States,  in 
variety,  quantity  and  cost,  do  not  equal  those  of  the  Slavs  and 
Hungarians  in  the  labor  camps  and  boarding  houses,  and  are  far 
below  the  standard  of  laborers  of  other  nationalities,  native  and 
foreign  born.”  1 It  is  certain  that  the  Italians,  at  least  in  the 
early  years  of  their  residence,  when  they  are  trying  hardest  to  save, 
eat  less  than  the  day’s  toil  demands.  They  often  have  but  one 
warm  meal  a day.  Of  meat  they  eat  little,  and  an  insufficiency 
of  nitrogen  is  a common  defect  of  their  diet.  They  consume 
plenty  of  vegetables;  and  therein  their  diet  is  more  wholesome 
than  that  of  many  other  laborers  in  America;  only,  it  easily  runs 
to  an  extreme.  Everywhere,  even  in  the  agricultural  colonies, 
imported  spaghetti  and  macaroni  are  freely  consumed.  The  use  of 
milk  is  somewhat  restricted,  and  olive  oil  is  a common  but  ex- 
pensive substitute  for  butter.  Large  quantities  of  beer  are  drunk 
and  it  is  given  even  to  the  young  children.  When  all  is  said,  how- 
ever, the  Italian  diet,  insufficient  in  quantity,  ill  constituted  as  to 
the  cost  of  its  elements,  and  defective  in  variety,  compares  not 
unfavorably  with  that  usual  in  Italy.  But  life  in  Italy  is  on  the 
other  hand  less  active,  and  the  climate  is  warmer. 

When  the  lightness  of  the  Italian’s  physique  is  considered,  and 
the  conditions  of  his  labor  and  living,  impairment  of  the  body 
would  seem  bound  to  result.  The  subject  is  vast  and  our  knowl- 
edge limited,  yet  certain  facts  stand  forth  in  sharp  relief. 

Italian  Districts,”  American  Journal  vf  Sociology , January,  1913,  pp.  509-542; 
F.  O.  Beck,  The  Italian  in  Chicago  (Chicago,  1919),  pp.  13-18;  R.  Crawford,  The 
Immigrant  in  St.  Louis  (St.  Louis,  1916),  esp.  pp.  19-22;  D.  Ciolli,  “The  \\ op 
in  the  Track  Gang,”  Immigrants  in  America  Review,  July,  1916,  pp.  61-64. 

1 Sheridan,  p.  477.  Cf.  Commissioner  of  Labor,  The  Italians  in  Chicago,  pp. 
44-48. 


UNITED  STATES.  THE  ITALIAN  EXPERIENCE  387 

Except  for  gardeners,  some  tradespeople,  and  some  artisans,  the 
day’s  work  is  generally  exacting.  Even  under  the  best  conditions, 
it  has  been  said,  nine  or  ten  years  in  an  American  foundry  suffice 
to  ruin  the  health  of  the  Italian.1  In  the  consular  reports  are 
abundant  references  to  the  exhausting  character  of  the  work  per- 
formed. The  Italians  arrive  healthy,  “ but  when,”  wrote  Luigi 
Villari,  “ they  have  been  here  a few  years  they  and  their  children 
appear  pale  and  used-up.”  2 

“ As  a class  the  home  workers  visited  in  New  York,”  an  American  official 
investigator  has  stated,  “ are  anemic,  poorly  nourished  individuals.  . . . 
Rearing  large  families  in  the  most  depressing  surroundings,  the  women  give 
their  entire  time  to  their  ‘ finishing  ’ work  and  household  duties.  ...  A 
rosy,  robust  home  finisher  was  never  encountered  in  this  investigation.  . . . 
Some  of  the  pathological  conditions  among  these  people,  however,  are  such 
as  result  from  constant  sitting  in  a faulty  position,  confinement,  and  close 
concentration.  The  most  apparent  disease  symptoms  common  to  women 
doing  this  work  are  badly  nourished  bodies,  pallor,  anemia,  catarrh,  poor 
appetite,  lack  of  animation,  bad  teeth,  curved  spine,  stooped  shoulders,  hol- 
low chests,  and  lack  of  suppleness,  in  general  poor  stamina.”  Heavy  bun- 
dles are  lifted  and  carried  often  to  the  day  of  the  baby’s  birth.  “ After  the 
baby  is  bom,  while  such  a woman  is  working  — sewing  — she  nurses  her 
child  every  time  it  cries  and  does  not  wean  it  for  several  years.  This  is  to 
her  the  cheapest  and  most  convenient  method  of  feeding  her  infant.”  3 

Such  words  cannot  of  course  describe  the  career  of  every  Italian 
woman.  The  home  finishers  (what  an  appellation  it  is!)  are  a 
fraction  of  the  collectivity.  Yet  they  are  a symptomatic  fraction, 
and  could  not  exist  in  isolation.  Other  classes  of  workers  press 
upon  them  — and  what  is  there  in  the  preparation  of  these  other 
classes  that  fits  them  for  a materially  different  lot  ? The  lined 
faces,  for  that  matter,  with  many  a confession  of  past  beauty, 

1 Such  statements  are  common.  See,  e.g.,  G.  La  Piana,  The  Italians  in  Mil- 
waukee, Wisconsin  (Milwaukee,  1915),  p.  28. 

2 Op.  cil.  in  Boll.  Ernig.,  1908,  No.  16,  p.  29.  Cf.  A.  Pecorini,  “ The  Italians  in 
the  United  States,”  Forum,  January,  1911,  p.  17;  and  Industrial  Commission,  xv, 
p.  497.  In  1914  and  1915  the  Metropolitan  Life  Insurance  Company  studied  some 
10,000  children  who  had  received  employment  certificates.  The  Italian  boys  and 
girls  (nearly  a fifth  of  all)  were  the  shortest  in  stature;  the  girls  were  the  lightest  in 
weight  of  any  group;  the  boys  the  lightest  of  all  but  one;  the  children  born  in 
America  were  shorter  and  of  lighter  weight  than  those  born  in  Italy.  See  L.  K. 
Frankel  and  L.  I.  Dublin,  Heights  and  Weights  of  New  York  City  Children  14  to  16 
Years  of  Age,  New  York,  1916. 

3 Woman  and  Child  Wage-Earners,  ii,  pp.  295  f. 


388 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


and  the  frail  forms  that  have  never  been  free  to  grow,  anyone 
can  see  who  will  observingly  visit  the  Italian  settlements.  There 
is  no  girlhood,  some  one  has  said,  among  the  Italians;  womanhood 
follows  upon  childhood. 

Pneumonia  and  broncho-pneumonia  have  taken  a fateful  hold 
upon  these  people,  who  are  in  general  victims  of  the  infectious 
maladies,  and  of  rheumatism,  but  seldom  of  gastro-intestinal 
diseases.  In  the  children  enteritis  is  common  — evidence  of 
ignorant  or  careless  feeding  — and  diphtheria  and  measles.  In 
Boston  and  New  York  the  death  rate  of  Italian  children  under 
five  has  been  very  high.  Young  and  old  fall  a ready  prey  to 
tuberculosis;  women,  it  would  seem,  oftener  than  men,  though 
among  other  peoples  men  come  first.  Tubercular  men  and 
women  may  continue  at  their  work  — making  candy,  pastry, 
cigars  — but  since  the  belief  that  the  air  of  their  native  land  will 
cure  them  is  widespread,  they  often  sell  their  belongings  and 
make  for  their  native  towns.  Hence  the  death  rate  in  New  York 
is  not  high,  except  for  children  under  fifteen  — their  rate  is  ex- 
ceeded only  by  that  of  the  negroes.  The  Italian  government 
physicians  who  accompany  the  emigrant-carrying  ships  testify  to 
hundreds  of  cases  of  tuberculosis  per  year,  but  not  to  all,  since  the 
patients  with  more  moderate  cases,  which  do  not  require  treat- 
ment, escape  their  detection,  and  many  sufferers  in  the  most 
advanced  stages  seek  the  comforts  of  the  first  or  second  cabin, 
outside  the  physicians’  jurisdiction.1 

1 On  the  problems  of  health,  see  La  Piana,  pp.  26-57;  R.  C.  Cabot  and  E.  K. 
Ritchie,  “ The  Influence  of  Race  on  the  Infant  Mortality  of  Boston  in  1909,” 
Boston  Medical  and  Surgical  Journal,  February  17, 1910,  pp.  199-202;  W.  H.  Davis, 
“ The  Relation  of  the  Foreign  Population  to  the  Mortality  Rates  of  Boston,”  a 
paper  read  at  the  37th  annual  meeting  of  the  American  Academy  of  Medicine, 
June,  1912;  W.  H.  Guilfoy,  The  Influence  of  Nationality  upon  the  Mortality  of  a 
Community  ( Monograph  Series,  Department  of  Health  of  the  City  of  New  York),  Xew 
York,  1917;  P.  R.  Eastman,  “The  Relation  of  Parental  Nativity  to  the  Infant 
Mortality  of  New  York  State,”  American  Journal  of  Diseases  of  Children,  March, 
1919,  pp.  195-2 1 1 ; and  several  statements  by  Dr.  A.  Stella:  “ The  Prevalence  of 
Tuberculosis  among  the  Italians  in  the  United  States,”  reprinted  from  Transactions 
of  the  Sixth  International  Congress  on  Tuberculosis,  1908,  pp.  429-453;  “ The  Effects 
of  Urban  Congestion  on  Italian  Women  and  Children,”  reprinted  from  the  Medical 
Record,  May  2,  1908,  pp.  3-26;  La  lotta  contra  la  tubercolosi  fra  gli  italiani  nella 
citta  di  New  York  ed  effetti  dell’  urbanismo  (7/7  Congresso  Inlenuzionele  conlro  la 


UNITED  STATES.  THE  ITALIAN  EXPERIENCE  389 


A constant  source  of  bodily  impairment  or  death  is  industrial 
accident.  The  occupational  concentration  of  the  Italians  is  pre- 
cisely such  as  to  subject  them  to  risk ; for  few  are  in  agriculture  or 
the  commercial  callings,  and  many  work  in  an  environment  of 
rocks,  heavy  machinery,  sharp  implements,  and  the  elemental 
motive  powers.  Blasting,  concrete  mixing,  coal  gases,  and  the 
dangerous  seams  of  coal  mines  dispose,  typically,  to  many  acci- 
dents. Ignorance  of  spoken  English,  inability  to  read,  fatigue, 
that  uncultivated  intelligence  which,  after  a mishap,  is  only  too 
easily  called  carelessness,  complicate  the  risk.  In  1912,  in  Cali- 
fornia, a non-industrial  state,  report  was  made  of  some  600  acci- 
dents to  Italians,  including  26  deaths  and  35  cases  of  permanent 
incapacity  to  work.  The  death  rate  in  bituminous  coal  mining  is 
about  four  per  thousand  persons  each  year;  but  for  ten  years  of 
work,  one  in  twenty-five.  In  the  Pennsylvania  mines,  the  deaths 
of  Italians  have  exceeded  100  per  year,  say,  one  in  every  three 
days.  In  1908  — an  off-year,  industrially  — the  Italian  consulate 
heard  of  more  than  100  deaths  of  Italians  on  the  railways  of 
Pennsylvania,  this  number  covering  only  those  instances  in  which 
no  heirs  survived  in  the  state.  Now  and  then,  as  at  Cherry, 
Illinois,  and  Dawson,  New  Mexico,  a single  accident  may  destroy 
a hundred  or  more  Italians.  No  one  can  say  how  many  industrial 
injuries  or  deaths  take  place  each  year  in  the  length  and  breadth 
of  the  land.  No  one  can  say  how  many  of  those  who  escape  in- 
jury in  one  year  will  not  meet  it  in  five  or  ten  years,  or  twenty. 
Once  it  happened  commonly  that  the  worker  was  known  to  his 
employer  only  by  number,  so  that  identification  was  impossible, 
and  friends  were  uninformed;  and  even  today  this  occurs,  or 
Pasquale  suffers  a sea  change  into  Pat!  Under  American  lia- 

Tubercolosi),  Rome,  1912;  and  a statement  before  the  New  York  Factory  Commis- 
sion, Preliminary  Report,  iii,  pp.  1939-1944.  In  Boll.  Emig.  annual  statistics  ap- 
pear of  the  morbidity  of  returning  Italians. 

When  the  Emigration  Council  was  asked  to  approve  an  appropriation  of  300,000 
lire  for  the  Italian  Hospital  in  New  York,  Senator  Bodio  recommended  affirmative 
action  but  considered  that  “ in  view  of  the  great  number  of  sick  poor  to  be  counted 
daily  in  the  Italian  population  ” it  could  render  but  a limited  service.  See  “ Rendi- 
conti  soinmari  delle  adunanze  del  Consiglio  dell’  Emigrazione,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1907, 
No.  1,  p.  14. 


390 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


bility  and  compensation  laws,  indemnities  for  accidents  to  the 
Italians  have  been  meager  or  often  lacking  altogether.1 

An  unwholesome  situation  which  Italian  writers  have  re- 
peatedly stressed  is  that  produced  by  the  long  separation  of  the 
sexes,  married  or  unmarried.  Two-thirds  or  more  of  the  immi- 
grants are  male.  It  is  an  abnormal  existence  which  the  gangs 
lead,  secluded  for  long  periods,  so  that  the  restraints  collapse 
after  a while.  The  savings  which  are  faithfully  sent  at  first  to  the 
wife  in  Italy  become  less  frequent  and  then  cease;  a new  wife  is 
supported  here.  The  boarding-house  system  gives  a special  spur 
to  immorality.  Innocently  or  illicitly,  venereal  disease  is  ac- 
quired and  is  transmitted,  women  and  children  becoming  frequent 
victims.  It  is  not  clear  that  the  Italians  are  in  a worse  plight 
than  some  other  immigrant  groups  similarly  circumstanced,  but 
it  is  certain  that  disease  is  more  prevalent  among  them  than  it 
was  in  Italy. 

Not  to  speak  of  the  exploitation  of  the  Italians  by  their  coun- 
trymen would  be  to  convey  a false  notion  of  their  experience.  It 
is  an  extraordinary  chapter,  the  like  of  which  would  not  need  to  be 
written  in  a history  of  the  Scandinavians,  Germans,  and  Irish. 
Mr.  Ross  has  ascribed  the  difference  to  the  lack  of  mutual  help- 
fulness among  the  Italians,2  but  he  does  them  serious  injustice. 
When  business  troubles  appear,  friends  and  relatives  are  quick  to 
help.  In  many  small  ways  the  Italians  are  to  an  uncommon 
degree  cooperative.  They  are  the  only  people,  an  inquirer  has 
found,  for  instance,  who  make  no  charge  for  watching  over  a 
neighbor’s  child  while  its  mother  is  away  at  work.3  No,  the 
indubitable  basis  of  exploitation  is  the  ignorance  and  credulity 
of  these  immigrants,  sometimes  a mercenary  drift.  Given  these 
traits  to  play  upon,  the  way  of  the  exploiter  is  easy. 

1 Casual  references  to  accidents  abound  in  the  consular  reports;  but  see  espe- 
cially Aldrovandi,  pp.  48  f.;  “ II  distretto  vice-consolare  di  Pittsburg,”  Emig.  e Col., 
1909,  in'”,  pp.  182-186;  F.Daneo,  “Gli  infortuni  sul  lavoro  in  California  nel  1912,” 
Boll.  Emig.,  1913,  No.  14,  pp.  59-64.  Cf.  Bernardy,  Italia  randagia,  pp.  161-1S9. 
Our  state  reports  do  not  generally  supply  details  of  nationality. 

J E.  A.  Ross,  The  Old  World  in  the  New  (New  York,  1914),  p.  294. 

3 Anthony,  p.  140.  See  also  Odencrantz,  p.  25. 


UNITED  STATES.  THE  ITALIAN  EXPERIENCE  391 


Of  the  great  abuses,  only  that  virtual  slavery  of  children, 
already  described,  has  quite  disappeared.1  Despoliation  of  new- 
comers by  hotel  keepers  has  been  frequent,  and  the  calculated 
exactions  of  notaries  and  quack  doctors  have  persisted.2  But  the 
greatest  depredations  have  touched  the  matters  of  employment 
and  savings. 

The  immigrant  walks  through  Mulberry  Street  and  sees  a crowd  around 
a bar  in  a basement.  He  enters  the  basement  and  finds  a man  employing 
men  for  a company.  He  adds  his  name  to  the  list  without  knowing  anything 
about  the  work  he  will  be  called  upon  to  do,  or  about  the  place  where  he  is 
to  be  transported,  or  about  the  terms  of  his  engagement.  Perhaps,  how- 
ever, he  passes  a banker’s  establishment  and  stops  to  read  on  a paper  dis- 
played at  the  window  a demand  for  two  hundred  laborers,  supplemented 
with  the  significant  assurance  that  the  place  of  work  is  not  far  distant.  He 
enters,  enlists,  takes  his  chances,  and  falls  in  the  snare  set  for  him. 3 

So  it  was  and  still  partly  is.  And  the  snare  ? Wages  may 
be  lower  or  employment  briefer  than  expected;  payment  of 
wages  may  be  delayed,  so  that  idleness  becomes  the  alterna- 
tive to  unsatisfactory  terms  of  labor;  transportation  charges 
turn  out  to  have  been  merely  advanced;  unavoidable  expend- 
iture at  the  company  store  consumes  the  wages  due;  return 
to  the  city  or  transportation  to  a different  employment  an- 
nihilates savings.  The  boss  who  accompanies  the  gang,  per- 
haps providing  shelter  and  food,  cuts  off  a slice  of  the  wages  and 
is  brutal.  The  greatest  abuses  follow  when  employment  is  slack. 
The  padrone  may  rise  to  wealth.  Often  retention  of  the  job  de- 
pends upon  a faithful  silence  concerning  the  fact  of  a commission 
paid.  It  is  only  in  a fairly  recent  period  that  the  padrone  system 
has  suffered  a decline,  but  the  boss  persists  — because  he  is  in- 
dispensable — and  abuses  are  frequent  still. 

Remarkable  has  been  the  role  of  the  banker.  He  is  generally  a 
paesano  — from  the  immigrant’s  village  — and  it  used  to  be  said 

1 At  one  time,  a consular  estimate,  which  I suspect  to  be  somewhat  wild,  placed 
at  8000  the  number  of  such  children  in  the  chief  cities;  Florenzano,  p.  156.  Cf. 
Carpi,  i,  pp.  233-235. 

s Miss  Wald  has  called  attention  to  the  difficulty  had  in  establishing  a nursing 
service  in  the  Italian  parts  of  New  York,  because  of  the  quack  and  the  secrecy 
of  his  methods.  L.  I).  Wald,  The  House  on  Henry  Street  (New  York,  1915),  p.  37. 

3 S.  Merlino,  “ Italian  Immigrants  and  their  Enslavement,”  Forum,  April, 
1893,  p.  185. 


392 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


that  there  were  as  many  in  Mulberry  Street  as  there  are  regions  in 
South  Italy.  “ The  newcomers,”  wrote  Mr.  Villari  succinctly, 
“ cannot  even  go  about  in  the  streets  without  a guide  always  at 
their  side.  They  need  some  one  to  write  their  letters,  to  supply 
paper  and  stamps,  to  send  their  letters,  to  accompany  them 
while  they  make  their  purchases  and  go  to  the  station,  to  find 
lodgings  for  them  and  an  eating-place  and  work,  to  safeguard  their 
savings  and  transmit  them  to  Italy,  taking  care  even  of  sums  so 
small  that  no  serious  bank  would  handle  them.”  1 The  banker 
sells  tickets  and  coal,  writes  letters,  finds  employment  and  lodg- 
ing, acts  as  a lawyer,  and  renders  many  other  services.  At  the 
time  of  the  Messina  earthquake,  while  Americans  flocked  to  the 
newspaper  bulletins,  the  Italians  collected  about  the  bankers’ 
quarters  for  news.  The  very  humbleness  of  the  establishment 
is  in  its  favor  — one  mistrusts  the  costly  fronts  of  the  American 
banks.  One  fears  even  the  impersonal  Banco  di  Napoli,  dele- 
gated by  the  Italian  government  to  transmit  emigrants’  savings. 
But  one  pays  a price  for  the  comprehensive  service  of  the  small 
banker,  partly  in  the  high  commissions  but  more  in  the  risk  that 
is  run.  Recent  protective  legislation  in  Massachusetts  and  in 
New  York  came  only  long  after  the  history  of  abscondings  had 
begun  to  unfold  its  crowded  pages.  What  pathos  is  in  this 
chronicle!  Much  has  been  uttered  about  it,  in  passion  or  in 
prayer,  and  every  episode  electrifies  the  Italian  colony;  but, 
lesson  unlearned,  the  immigrant  takes  his  next  savings  to  still 
another  paesano? 

1 Villari,  in  Boll.  Emig.,  190S,  No.  16,  p.  33. 

2 On  exploitation  see,  among  innumerable  references,  J.  Koren,  “ The  Padrone 
System  and  Padrone  Banks,”  Bulletin  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor,  No.  9 (1897),  pp.  113- 
129;  Conte,  pp.  115-132;  C.  Cianfarra,  II  diario  di  un  emigrante  (New  York, 
19 — ),  pp.  56,  84,  122  f.,  168-170;  Carpi,  i,  p.  72;  anon.,  “I  lavoratori  italiani 
nel  West  Virginia,”  LTtalia  Coloniale,  August-September,  1903,  pp.  858-861; 
Canada,  Royal  Commission  . . . the  Alleged  Fraudulent  Practices  of  Employment 
Agencies  («'/.);  Sheridan,  pp.  435-456;  A.  Franzoni,  Gli  interessi  italiani  in  New 
York  (Rome,  1908),  ch.  ii;  New  York,  Report  of  Commission  of  Immigration,  pp. 
24-47,  m-128;  A.  Vinci,  “ Banche  e banchieri  italiani  negli  Stati  Uniti,”  Rivista 
Colo/iiale,  December,  1909,  pp.  1139-1156;  G.  Preziosi,  GV  italiani  negli  Stati  Uniti 
del  Nord  (Milan,  1909),  pp.  69-78;  L.  Villari,  Gli  Stati  Uniti  d'  America  e Vemi- 
grazione  italiana  (Milan,  1912),  pp.  245-253;  and  the  full  report  on  “ Immigrant 
Banks  ” in  Immigration  Commission,  xxxvii,  pp.  203-350. 


UNITED  STATES.  THE  ITALIAN  EXPERIENCE  393 


The  cooperative  or  fraternal  spirit  of  this  population  takes 
peculiar  forms.  As  in  other  lands  also,  the  chief  type  of  Italian 
organization,  a type  comparatively  uncommon  among  other 
nationalities  of  immigrant,  is  the  mutual  aid  society.  In  1910 
an  Italian  census  discovered  1116  societies  in  thirty-five  states, 
and  half  of  them  were  held  to  contain  78,000  members.  But  the 
census  did  not  pretend  to  be  complete;  in  Chicago  for  instance, 
where  two  years  later  400  mutual  aid  societies  were  estimated  to 
exist,  only  10  were  reported.  Not  only  are  many  of  the  societies 
weak,  but  federation  is  rare  — - an  instance  in  Upper  Michigan 
and  the  Figli  d’ltalia,  composed  of  local  lodges,  probably  stand 
alone.  The  comparative  absence  of  federation  and  the  multi- 
plicity of  organizations  arise  from  that  remarkable  spirit  of 
regionalism  of  the  Italians,  which  we  have  elsewhere  noted. 
How  often  are  the  societies  even  named  after  the  village  whose 
sons  are  their  members,  or  after  the  patron  saint  of  that  vil- 
lage ! 1 

Inter-society  hostility  is  constant,  and  is  the  greater  the  more 
intense  the  clan  feeling  within  the  society.  Indeed,  the  funda- 
mental phenomenon  is  rather  the  inter-regional  hostility,  and 
that,  where  it  is  not  acute,  is  at  least  clearly  conscious  of  itself. 
Regional  lines  have  had  a long  history  in  New  York  where 
emigrants  from  one  village  may  occupy  one  street,  those  from 
a different  village  another.  The  tale  is  repeated  in  the  other 
centers,  great  and  small.  It  has  been  said  that  in  some  of  the 
agricultural  colonies  of  Texas  only  Sicilians  can  get  a foothold. 
Even  in  the  church  going  of  the  women  regionalism  has  been 
remarked.  And  in  the  field  of  industry  it  leads  to  those  clashes 
between  groups  which  have  so  often  perplexed  foremen  and  con- 
tractors. In  praise  of  Mexican  laborers,  a Western  trackmaster 
once  said,  “ They  don’t  have  feuds  and  disorders  like  the  Italians, 
who  are  always  fighting  unless  the  whole  gang  is  from  the  same 

1 “ Le  societa  italiane  negli  Stati  Uniti  dell’  America  del  Nord  nel  1910,”  Boll. 
Emig.,  1912,  No.  4,  pp.  19-54;  L.  Provana  del  Sabbione,  “ Condizioni  della  emi- 
grazione  nel  R.  Distretto  consolare  in  Chicago,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1913,  No.  1,  pp.  27- 
33;  di  Palma-Castiglione,  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1915,  No.  6,  p.  35;  Villari,  Gli  Stati  Uniti, 
etc.,  pp.  239-241.  For  an  earlier  date,  cf.  Guida  Metelli,  pp.  124-131. 


394 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


town  in  Italy.”  1 Only  years  can  be  expected  to  attenuate  this 
trait,  before  which  the  efforts  of  Americans  to  help  the  city  Ital- 
ians have  often  collapsed  in  futility.  Even  when  the  immigrant 
seems  wholly  “ Americanized,”  a trifling  incident  may  uncover 
the  regionalist  impulse. 

What  few  Italians  understand  before  they  come  to  the  United 
States  — and  I speak  especially  of  those  who  will  linger  or  stay 
permanently  — is  that  a mysterious  process  of  unmaking  and 
remaking  will  take  place  in  them.  In  the  older  persons  the 
inevitable  resistance  is  greater  than  in  the  young.  But  all  have 
come  a long  way,  and  their  die  is  cast.  Children  of  circumstance, 
they  are  under  a spell  of  suggestion  which  makes  them  fertile 
ground  for  the  seeds  of  assimilation  — to  good  elements  of  our 
life  or  bad.  America  would  “ Americanize  ” them.  But  “ Ameri- 
canization ” is  a two-edged  sword.  Some  the  prodigious  conflict 
will  strengthen,  others  it  will  weaken.  All  that  moral  support 
that  men  derive  from  religious  and  social  ties  with  the  group  they 
have  grown  up  with  is  imperilled  when  they  find  themselves  in  the 
maelstrom  of  a strange  land.  The  Italians  are  rural  dwellers 
dropped  into  the  unaccustomed  brutal  parts  of  great  cities.  The 
fascination  of  the  new  home  may  be  unwholesome  but  it  is 
keen.  For  many  the  destiny  is  one  of  loneliness,  disappoint- 
ment, demoralization,  sometimes  transitional  in  its  stay,  but 
often  enduring.  The  immigrant  has  pressed  his  steps  into  a 
“ one-way  street.”  “ The  number  of  those  who  are  unhappier 
than  I is  great,”  cries  the  buffeted  immigrant  of  Cianfarra’s 
diary,  “ and  unluckily  for  many  of  them,  there  is  no  hope  of 
better  days.”  2 

There  is  question  not  merely  of  moral  change  and  economic 

1 Clark,  Mexican  Labor,  etc.,  p.  477.  My  own  railway  correspondents  testified 
in  the  same  vein.  On  the  general  subject,  see,  e.g.  (besides  the  references  on 
societies),  Itidustrial  Commission,  xv,  p.  474;  Fara  Forni,  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1905, 
No.  5;  Villari,  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1908,  No.  16;  Mayor  des  Planches,  p.  159;  A.  Ber- 
nardy,  America  vissuta  (Turin,  1911),  pp.  322  f. 

2 Cianfarra,  p.  95.  Only  those,  he  says  in  his  preface,  will  disbelieve  his  tale  who 
are  but  newly  arrived  in  the  country.  Cf.  Conte,  pp.  101-113. 


UNITED  STATES.  THE  ITALIAN  EXPERIENCE  395 


loss.  The  new  life  about  the  immigrant  may  be  rich  and  full,  but 
it  is  imperious  in  its  injunctions.  He  must  make  the  discovery 
that  America  exacts  for  all  that  she  gives.  She  applies  tests,  im- 
poses conventions,  demands  compromises,  stipulates  concessions 
to  her  very  practical  ways,  and  the  deep  provincial  emotional 
nature  of  the  Italian  must  undergo  atrophy  or  metamorphosis. 
For  many  it  is  even  as  one  perspicacious  observer  has  said:  “ To 
be  happy  in  America  one  must  have  a certain  mechanical  ability, 
a practical  and  opportunist  spirit,  a nature  that  is  sharp  in  business 
but  in  other  things  narrow  and  matter-of-fact,  with  a tendency  to 
conventionalism  and  the  literal  following  of  approved  standards, 
a great  interest  in  whatever  is  American  and  a high  disdain  of 
all  that  is  Latin  or  that  glorifies  the  Latin  life.”  1 

It  is  the  children  who  most  easily  make  concessions.  Their 
plastic  bodies  and  impressionable  minds  have  less  of  the  Old 
World  to  discard  and  they  move  so  much  faster  than  their  pro- 
genitors that  either  a breach  ensues  or  parental  indifference 
arises.  “ The  standards  are  different  in  America,”  they  assert 
and  their  elders  cannot  gainsay  them.  Less  is  learned  by  the 
children  in  their  homes  than  was  usual  in  Italy,  for  many  things 
are  now  bought  ready-made  that  there  would  be  contrived  by  the 
mother  with  the  help  of  her  growing  children.  More,  relatively, 
is  learned  in  the  bristling  outside  environment,  in  the  street  and 
the  school.  To  the  school  every  child  is  forced  by  law  to  go,  but 
with  rare  exceptions  it  does  so  only  until  it  has  reached  the  mini- 
mum age  at  which  work  is  permissible,  and  probably  the  excep- 
tions are  more  than  balanced  by  instances  in  which  the  father’s 
false  oath  as  to  the  child’s  age  liberates  the  child  prematurely. 
It  should  be  noted  that  only  the  public  school  is  ordinarily  in 
question,  since  parochial  teaching  has  little  counterpart  in  Italy.2 

1 Bernardy,  America  vissuta,  p.  308. 

2 A striking  contrast  appears  in  some  results  of  an  inquiry  made  by  the  Immi- 
gration Commission  (ii,  p.  71).  In  37  cities,  81,265  South  Italian  children  were  4.5 
per  cent  of  all  pupils  in  the  public  schools,  the  Irish  slightly  exceeding  them  with 
4.8  per  cent.  In  24  cities,  10,640  South  Italian  children  were  only  0.8  per  cent  of 
all  pupils  in  parochial  schools,  the  Irish  having  26.2  per  cent.  On  the  promptness 
with  which  the  children  leave  school  at  fourteen,  see,  e.  g.,  Crawford,  p.  45. 


396  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

The  ability  to  read  and  write,  what  is  more  to  read  and  write  in 
English,  gives  to  the  child  a powerful  instrument  for  adaptation 
which  his  parents  lack.  And  his  growth  toward  American  ways 
rouses  in  him  some  of  that  contempt  for  his  origin  which  has  so 
often  brought  sadness  to  his  parents. 

Liberal  influences  may  tantalize,  but  they  perhaps  less  often 
benefit,  the  illiterate  parents.  The  admirable  work  of  Miss 
Moore  with  the  Italians  in  construction  camps  was  as  a drop  in  an 
ocean;  and  the  urban  night  schools  are  little  more.  It  is  strange 
that  a country,  whose  president  vetoed  the  literacy  test  bill  on  the 
ground,  largely,  that  immigrants  had  been  denied  schooling  op- 
portunities in  their  own  countries,  should  itself  have  taken  hardly 
a step  to  provide  schooling  for  those  adults  who  are  four  in  five  of 
all  immigrants.  Many  Italians,  of  course,  are  literate  when  they 
come.  For  them  there  are  bookshops  in  the  great  centers  whose 
selection  of  volumes  is  miserable  and  disheartening,  a reminder  of 
how  far  literacy  may  fall  short  of  cultivation  and  training.  For 
them  also  there  are  now  many  Italian  newspapers,  including  a 
half  dozen  dailies  in  New  York  alone,  some  of  which  are  said  to 
dispose  of  25,000  or  more  copies  per  day.  Editorially  these  jour- 
nals are  weak,  and  I do  not  believe  that  they  seek  to  foster  the 
best  interests  of  the  immigrants.  Among  the  leading  ones  I have 
repeatedly  found  as  much  as  a fifth  of  their  space  devoted  to 
medical  advertisements',  commonly  of  quack  doctors  and  nos- 
trums. Theirs  is  surely  a shameful  exploitation  of  the  ignorant. 

Profound  changes  take  place  in  the  recreations  of  the  Italians. 
What  the  open  country  or  the  little  village  allows  has  scant 
place  in  the  American  city,  and  anywhere  else  has  scant  oppor- 
tunity. Much  gambling  persists.  The  saloon,  though  far  less 
widely  patronized  than  among  a number  of  other  nationalities, 
acquires  a strong  hold.  Beer  was  hardly  known  to  the  Italians  in 
Italy.  In  the  strange  land  it  is  a solace  which  terminates  the 
strain  of  the  day’s  hard  toil.  The  theater  is  a favorite  institution, 
accessible  even  in  the  small  centers.  In  New  York,  San  Fran- 
cisco, and  Boston  the  marionette  used  to  display  and  recite  the 
deeds  of  knighthood.  But  the  deeds,  alas,  have  lost  their  flavor, 
or  the  imagination  needed  to  enjoy  them  has  been  jaded  or  found 


UNITED  STATES.  THE  ITALIAN  EXPERIENCE  397 


other  delectation.  In  the  United  States,  the  stage  must  exhibit 
in  full  more  than  the  imagination  can  be  trusted  to  conceive, 
and  even  the  immigrant  becomes  sophisticated.  The  burlesque 
theater  has  always  welcomed  an  immigrant  patronage,  and  as  in 
turn  the  German,  the  Irish,  and  the  Jew  have  been  the  protago- 
nists of  its  febrile  comedy  so  now  the  Italian  has  begun  to  dance 
and  sing  and  break  his  English  for  the  diversion  of  others.  There 
are  indeed  theaters  in  which  short  plays  are  enacted  in  Italian,  or 
where  every  “variety  artist”  speaks  only  the  language  (adapted!) 
of  Dante.  To  the  moving  picture  show,  a tremendous  and  de- 
served vogue  has  come  and  more  than  any  other  institution  it  has 
superseded  the  marionette  theater.  Since  it  requires  little  or  no 
knowledge  of  spoken  or  written  English,  it  may  bring  its  educa- 
tional or  moral  force  to  bear  upon  even  the  newly  arrived  immi- 
grant. Until  I found  it  in  Catanzaro  and  other  South  Italian 
communities,  I had  supposed  it  to  offer  a new  experience  to  our 
immigrants  in  America;  yet  to  most  it  doubtless  is  novel,  and 
few  can  previously  have  had  the  habit  of  visiting  it. 

One  of  the  deepest  changes  which  the  Italians  experience  is  in 
religion.  A nucleus  of  the  faithful  there  is  to  be  sure  in  every 
important  collectivity.  In  New  York  City  alone  there  are  prob- 
ably a hundred  Italian  priests.  Commodious  churches  have 
been  built,  some  now  counting  two-score  years  and  more.  On 
saint’s  days  an  altar  may  be  erected  in  the  street,  the  image  of  the 
saint  is  displayed  out-of-doors,  brilliant  lights  and  vivid  colors  are 
everywhere.  The  festive  result  is  striking  in  its  contrast  at  once 
with  the  American  community  about  and  with  the  historical 
background  of  Protestantism,  even  of  Puritanism.  That  is  half 
the  story. 

In  the  scattered  places,  however,  amid  diversity  of  sects,  under 
stress  of  the  chill  winds  of  indifferentism  and  irreligion,  far  re- 
moved from  that  complex  of  conditions  which  in  the  Italian  vil- 
lage sustained  the  priest  in  even  a species  of  temporal  power, 
the  spirit  of  the  immigrant  changes.  Is  a local  church  lacking  ? 
Then  the  church  may  be  deemed  unnecessary,  and  many  are  the 
immigrants  who  have  long  lived  and  toiled  beyond  the  reach  of 
priest  or  church.  In  a coal  community  of  Indiana,  where  four 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


398 

thousand  Italians  lived,  neither  church  nor  priest  was  to  be 
found.1  Everywhere  Italians  have  fallen  away  from  that  religion 
whose  earthly  capital  is  still  the  Italian  capital.  A Milwaukee 
Catholic  organ,  in  1913,  estimated  (loosely  enough!)  that  a mil- 
lion Italians  had  already  been  lost.2  Those  who  abandon  the 
church  altogether  are  the  majority,  but  an  impressive  minority 
go  over  to  the  various  evangelical  denominations,  forming  Italian 
congregations  even  in  many  small  communities  of  the  country. 
This  extraordinary  movement  away  from  a secular  religion  is 
proceeding  as  quietly  as  it  is  extensively,  and  most  of  what  we 
would  like  to  know  about  the  psychology  of  it  is  still  enshrouded 
in  darkness.3 

Unschooled,  scattered,  mobile,  sundered  by  regional  rivalries, 
the  Italians  have  in  the  past  given  few  indications  of  the  presence 
of  a national  spirit.  Several  monuments,  including  at  least  two 
to  Garibaldi,  have  been  erected.  Support,  but  not  general  en- 
thusiasm, played  a part  in  furthering  the  Columbus  Day  move- 
ment. The  earthquake  catastrophes  of  the  Abruzzi  and  Sicily 
have  evoked  financial  sacrifices  for  succor  of  the  stricken.  At 
the  outbreak  of  the  Italo-Austrian  war,  demonstrations  of  loyalty 
were  many:  substantial  subscriptions  were  made  in  New  York 
to  the  prestito  della  mttoria,  thousands  of  reservists  responded  to 

1 Di  Palma-Castiglione,  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1915,  No.  7,  p.  59;  cf.  No.  6,  p.  35.  The 
case  of  the  granite-cutting  colony  at  Barre,  Vermont,  where  the  Italians  are  even 
more  numerous,  is  perhaps  even  more  striking;  see  A.  Mangano,  Sons  of  Italy  (New 
York,  1917),  p.  30,  and  Villari,  Gli  Stati  Uniti,  etc.,  p.  229. 

2 See  an  article,  “ Catholic  Italian  Losses,”  reproduced  in  Literary  Digest, 
October  11,  1913,  p.  636.  The  defection  runs  to  “ 60  per  cent,”  according  to  E.  C. 
Sartorio,  Social  and  Religious  Life  of  Italians  in  America  (Boston,  1918),  p.  104. 

3 What  little  has  been  written  on  the  religion  of  the  Italians  is  much  scattered. 
On  the  Catholic  phase,  see  J.  De  Ville,  “ Italians  in  the  United  States,”  Catholic 
Encyclopedia,  viii  (New  York,  1910),  pp.  205  f.;  Venticinque  anni  di  missione  fra 
gl’  immigrati  italiani  di  Boston,  Mass.,  1888-191  j,  Milan,  1913;  Rev.  P.  Capitani, 
La  questione  italiana  negli  Stati  Uniti  d’ America,  Cleveland,  1891;  and  sundry 
articles  in  the  bulletin  of  Italica  Gens.  On  the  Protestant  phase,  see  Mangano, 
pp.  149-194;  Sartorio,  ch.  4;  A.  Clot,  Guida  e consigli  per  gli  emigranti  italiani 
negli  Stati  Uniti  e nel  Canada  (2d  ed.,  New  York,  1916),  pp.  44-55  (a  list  of  Italian 
evangelical  churches);  W.  P.  Shriver,  Immigrant  Forces  (New  York,  1913),  pp.  206- 
212;  A.  McClure,  Leadership  of  the  New  America  — Racial  and  Religious  (New 
York,  1917),  PP-  i53~l66- 


UNITED  STATES.  THE  ITALIAN  EXPERIENCE  399 

the  call  to  return  to  Italy,  and  a characteristically  warm  reception 
was  given  to  the  members  of  the  Italian  mission  to  the  United 
States.1  Undoubtedly  the  war  served  greatly  to  intensify  na- 
tional feeling,  but  it  is  still  too  early  to  say  in  what  degree. 
Certainly  some  plain  limitations  upon  the  feeling  also  asserted 
themselves.  The  great  mass  of  reservists  did  not  return  to  Italy, 
but  worked  in  the  United  States  for  unprecedentedly  high  wages, 
and  the  Italian  newspapers,  whether  selfishly  or  reflecting  their 
readers’  sentiments,  were  unfeignedly  glad  when,  in  1917,  the 
American  effort  to  secure  from  Italy  consent  to  enrol  immigrants 
for  war  service  came  to  naught. 

When  the  Italian  takes  political  action  in  the  United  States, 
it  is  either  because  he  holds  by  certain  strong  convictions  or, 
much  more  generally,  because  after  a prolonged  residence  the 
expansion  of  his  interests  gives  to  naturalization  a special  value. 
A small  but  not  inconspicuous  group  have  held  aloof,  professing 
radical  principles.  Some  are  anarchists,  but  the  name  is  often 
falsely  applied  to  them.  In  the  summer  of  1917  several  an- 
archists were  killed  or  wounded  while  resisting  the  authorities. 
Fourteen  of  thirty-six  radicals  deported  in  June,  1919,  were 
Italian.  The  number  who  in  spirit  are  socialists  substantially 
exceeds  the  thousand  members  recently  claimed  by  the  Italian 
Socialist  Federation.2  Yet  these  radicals  and  the  syndicalists,  of 
whom  more  anon,  are  the  least  part  of  the  argument.  Expecting 
to  return  to  Italy,  the  Italians  generally  avoid  naturalization.  In 
the  study  which  the  Immigration  Commission  made  of  foreign- 
born  persons  who  had  satisfied  the  age  and  residence  requirements 
for  naturalization  it  was  found  that  one-third  of  all  immigrants 
(of  all  nationalities)  had  become  citizens,  and  of  the  North  Ital- 

1 See  G.  C.  Speranza,  “The  ‘ Americani’  in  Italy  at  War,”  Outlook,  April  12, 
1916,  pp.  844-864.  In  the  monthly  Carroccio  (New  York)  many  of  the  principal 
doings  of  the  Italians  of  the  United  States  are  recorded.  See  also  the  monthly 
Corriere  I talo- Americano,  New  York,  1915-. 

2 Mr.  John  La  Duca,  secretary  of  this  association,  writes  me  (August,  1917)  that 
the  illiteracy  of  the  Italians  makes  their  organization  difficult,  but  that,  once  mem- 
bers, they  become  ardent  propagators  of  socialist  principles.  Cf.  P.  Brenna, 
L’ emigrazione  italiana  (Florence,  1918),  p.  252.  On  Italian  radical  movements 
a score  of  years  ago  see  P.  Ghio,  L’anarchisme  aux  Etats-Unis  (Paris,  1903), 
ch.  iii. 


400 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


ians  in  particular  only  a quarter,  but  of  the  South  Italians  less 
than  a sixth  only.1  On  the  farm  it  is  the  ownership  of  property 
and  the  obligation  to  pay  taxes  that  stir  the  desire  for  naturaliza- 
tion. In  the  cities,  besides  this  factor,  stimulation  by  political 
parties  and,  latterly,  by  patriotic  organizations,  has  been  a power- 
ful factor.  An  initial  preference  for  the  Republican  party,  due 
doubtless  to  its  name,  has  in  some  large  centers  been  overcome  by 
the  greater  pressure  applied  by  the  Democratic  leaders.  We  have 
even  had  the  spectacle  of  an  Irish  politician  reading  to  an  Italian 
throng  a prepared  speech  rendered  into  Italian ! Undoubtedly  the 
naturalized  Italians,  already  many  thousand  in  the  great  cities, 
are  often  volatile  and  easily  confer  their  support  where  eloquence 
is  greatest  or  latest.  The  American-born  Italians  seem  to  be 
especially  ardent  in  their  patriotism.  In  the  older  colonies  of 
several  states,  particularly  where  the  North  Italians  have  settled, 
election  or  appointment  to  public  office  occasionally  takes  place. 
Often  it  is  the  second  generation  which  so  rises  to  importance,  and 
generally,  as  might  be  expected,  it  is  the  minor  offices  which  are 
involved  — police  captain,  clerk  of  the  city  hall,  justice  of  the 
peace;  more  rarely,  treasurer,  member  of  the  school  committee, 
judge,  or  representative  in  the  state  legislature.  In  national  af- 
fairs, the  Italians  have  so  far  been  all  but  negligible.  By  their 
delegations  and  newspapers  they  have  opposed  the  enactment  of 
legislation  restricting  immigration,  but  in  this  regard,  though 
they  are  especially  involved,  they  have  shown  much  less  pertinac- 
ity than  some  other  groups. 

It  is  difficult  to  indicate  in  brief  compass  what  the  sojourn  of  the 
Italians  in  the  United  States  has  meant  to  them.  I have  tried  to 
present  a particolored  picture,  for  no  other,  I believe,  can  be  true. 

1 Among  those  who  had  taken  out  first  papers,  the  South  Italians  had  a rate  of 
14.4  per  cent,  the  North  Italians  20.5,  and  all  nationalities  16;  the  showing  of  the 
Italians  seems  better,  but  the  reason  is  that,  among  other  nationalities,  so  large  a 
proportion  had  already  become  fully  naturalized.  Immigration  Commission,  i,  p.  4S4. 
A recent  investigation  in  Canada  found  that  only  19  per  cent  of  men  bom  in  Italy 
had  been  naturalized,  the  lowest  rate  for  any  except  certain  minor  immigrant 
peoples.  Census  and  Statistics  Office,  Special  Report  on  the  Foreign-Born  Popula- 
tion (Ottawa,  1915),  p.  18;  cf.  p.  27. 


UNITED  STATES.  THE  ITALIAN  EXPERIENCE  401 


Legion  is  the  number  of  writers  and  speakers  who  innocently  or 
intentionally  have  ignored  the  ills  which  afflict  this  immigration, 
but  the  ills  are  there  and,  taken  together,  are  portentous.  In  the 
lot  of  the  immigrant  what  is  not  foreseen  is  always  more  than 
what  is,  and  it  is  far  less  simple. 

How  have  the  people  of  the  United  States  received  this  many- 
sided  immigration  ? In  the  latter  part  of  the  nineteenth  century 
they  threw  open  to  aliens  in  general,  we  have  seen,  extensive  in- 
dustrial opportunities.  If  the  workers  who  have  come  had  been 
only  a mechanism  adjusted  to  certain  tasks  there  could  be  no 
further  question  touching  them.  But  they  have  been  human, 
members  of  the  body  politic,  actors  as  well  as  instruments;  and 
because  they  fall  into  complicated  social  relationships  within 
the  country  they  cannot  be  judged  from  one  point  of  view 
alone. 

The  Italians  have  generally  been  held  in  favor  by  the  employ- 
ing classes.  While  a low  wage,  to  be  sure,  implies  that  any  one 
worker  could  be  dismissed  without  serious  loss,  the  mass  who  re- 
ceive the  wage  are  not  conveniently  discarded.  Like  a low-grade 
ore  deposit,  they  have  value  in  the  large.  Work  that  demands 
training,  responsibility,  discretion,  is  not  for  the  great  majority. 
But  work  that  is  simple  and  monotonous,  that  exhausts  through 
duration  rather  than  from  concentrated  application,  that  can  be 
performed  by  men  disposed  in  a gang,  under  the  more  or  less 
military  supervision  of  a foreman,  so  that  the  worker  becomes 
himself  like  a part  of  a machine,  set  in  motion  only  when  other 
parts  are  active,  such  work  the  Italians,  helot-like,  have  per- 
formed satisfactorily.1  Their  workplace  is  often  dangerous,  dirty, 
and  wet,  and  their  tasks  are  of  the  unideal  sort  that  students  of 
utopias  and  socialisms  have  feared  men  would  universallyseek  to 
avoid.  To  secure  such  employment  the  Italians  have  been  willing 
to  go  to  remote  places,  to  give  up  all  thought,  for  the  time,  of  a 
fixed  home,  or  have  been  ready  to  toil  long  hours  at  a wheel  for 

1 “ The  Italians  are  driven  like  so  many  dogs  by  the  foreman.  ...  I do  suppose 
you  can  rush  an  Italian  gang  more  than  others,”  said  the  city  engineer  of  Brockton, 
some  years  ago.  Massachusetts,  Report  of  Board  to  Investigate  the  Unemployed, 
Part  IV,  p.  43. 


402 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


a wage  that  allows  only  a pinched  and  stunted  living.  Prodigies 
of  labor  have  resulted.  The  capital  equipment  of  the  country  has 
grown.  Less  robust  than  the  Slav,  less  hardy  than  the  Irish, 
the  Italian  has  contributed  largely  to  the  country’s  economic 
expansion. 

The  non-immigrant  laborers  similarly  have  a point  of  view, 
which,  like  that  of  the  employers,  is  echoed  by  many  persons  in 
the  general  population.  The  Italian  is  a competitor,  because  of 
his  numbers  and  his  qualities  deemed  unwelcome.  His  saving 
grace  is  that  he  often  enters  trades  in  which  his  competition  with 
Americans  is  not  apparent  or  direct.  He  takes  a low  wage;  even, 
according  to  a charge  that  is  common  and,  I believe,  sometimes 
well  founded,  a lower  wage  than  others  would  require  for  equiva- 
lent work.  Such  is  his  tractability  that  strikes  for  increase  of 
wages  and  all  bargaining  for  better  conditions  are  through  his 
presence  less  likely  to  succeed,  and  so  the  general  condition 
remains  poor.1  That  employers  make  capital  out  of  racial  rival- 
ries, playing  off  “ Wop  ” against  “ Hunkie,”  for  example,  and 
so  preventing  a united  labor  front,  is  well  enough  established. 
To  American  laborers  the  procedure  has  naturally  been  obnox- 
ious, and  they  have  perhaps  been  more  willing  to  regard  the 
Italian  as  blameworthy  than  as  victimized.  Equally  they  dislike 
the  Italian’s  readiness  to  pay  commissions  for  jobs  and  to  accept 
a loss  from  a loose  calculation  of  time  served  — for  example,  to 
take  pay  for  29^  hours  when  the  work  has  lasted  30. 

Italians  have  often  been  strike  breakers.  They  helped  to  de- 
feat the  Pennsylvania  coal  strike  of  1887-88.  A few  took  em- 
ployment during  the  longshoremen’s  strike  of  1887,  and  their 
increasing  numbers  became  the  employers’  means  of  preventing 
further  trouble.  The  immediate  cause  of  the  introduction  of 
Italians  into  the  New  York  clothing  industry  is  declared  to  have 
been  the  employers’  desire  to  escape  trade-union  demands.  With 
other  workers  they  helped  to  break  the  Chicago  meat  packing 
strike  of  1904.  During  the  cigar  makers’  strike  in  Florida  the 

1 For  instances  of  the  common  charge,  see,  e.g.,  Report  on  Woman  and  Child 
Wage-Earners,  iii,  p.  169;  Massachusetts,  Report  [on]  ...  the  Unemployed,  p.  101; 
Barnes,  pp.  8,  12;  Clark  and  Wyatt,  p.  194;  Wame,  p.  312. 


UNITED  STATES.  THE  ITALIAN  EXPERIENCE  403 


Italian  operatives  refrained  from  work,  but  their  interest  in  its 
outcome  was  so  slight  that  a large  part  permanently  abandoned 
the  region. 

The  Italian  women,  like  the  men,  have  not  been  interested  in 
labor  hostilities.  Visit  a Jewish  flower  maker,  said  a student  of 
some  of  the  smaller  trades,  and  she  will  plunge  at  once  into  a 
discussion  of  her  trade,  its  wages,  the  shop  treatment,  and  the 
like;  but  the  Italian  girl  thinks  only  of  displaying  her  work, 
grateful  for  the  interest  shown.1  In  1909  while  thousands  of  non- 
Italian  workers  in  the  New  York  shirt-waist  trade  struck  for  three 
months,  the  Italian  women  stayed  at  their  posts,  and  additional 
hundreds  of  them  stepped  into  the  empty  places.2 

To  some  extent  the  Italian’s  eyes  have  been  opened  to  the 
effect  of  his  actions.  Where  the  existing  unions  have  been  strong, 
he  has  been  ready  to  enter  them;  so  in  some  of  the  mines,  so  too, 
in  certain  quarters,  in  the  building  trades  — and  one  son  of  Italy 
has  risen  to  important  office  in  the  International  Hodcarriers’ 
Union.  In  the  anthracite  strikes  of  1900  and  1902  the  Italians 
were  won  to  participation;  their  leaders,  the  Irish,  in  actually 
overcoming  for  the  time  their  regional  factionalism,  did  what  the 
Italians  themselves  and  their  employers  had  often  failed  to  ac- 
complish. In  1907,  in  New  York,  six  thousand  organized  Ital- 
ian longshoremen  and  many  others  who  were  unorganized  played 
an  important  role  in  a great  six  weeks’  strike  which  involved 
thirty  thousand  workers;  as  it  happened,  the  strike  failed  and 
keen  resentment  at  the  union  was  felt.  Under  American  or  Eng- 
lish-speaking leaders,  the  bituminous  coal  miners  of  a portion 
of  the  western  Pennsylvania  fields  struck  for  sixteen  months, 
beginning  in  1910;  but  again  discouragement  over  the  failure  of 
their  efforts  was  acute.  Upon  many  counts  memorable,  a strike 
was  started  by  Poles  and  Italians  in  the  textile  mills  of  Lawrence 
in  1912;  the  conditions  protested  were  not  unlike  those  in  in- 
numerable immigrant  occupations,  but  the  publicity  given  them 
stirred  much  of  that  general  sympathy  which  became  a factor  in  a 

1 Van  Kleeck,  p.  35. 

2 See  an  account  by  Adriana  Spadoni,  “ The  Italian  Working  Woman  in  New 
York,”  Collier’s,  March  23,  1912,  pp.  14  f. 


404 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


settlement  favorable  to  the  workers.  In  this  strike,  the  Italians 
and  Poles  were  the  most  active  belligerents  and  to  an  exceptional 
extent  did  the  picketing.  Though  most  of  the  leaders  were  Eng- 
lish-speaking, one  Italian  organized  the  strike  for  the  quasi- 
syndicalist Industrial  Workers  of  the  World,  which  in  other 
centers  also  has  found  support  among  his  countrymen.1  During 
the  war  years,  with  the  tremendous  enhancement  of  the  bargain- 
ing power  of  labor,  Italians  have  frequently  participated  in  strikes 
and  at  times,  as  in  the  case  of  the  coal  heavers  of  the  New  York 
piers  in  1917,  they  were  the  first  to  quit  work. 

Yet  it  is  still  but  a fraction  of  the  Italians  who  are  members  of 
unions.  Only  one  in  ten  of  the  South  Italians  was  found  by  the 
Immigration  Commission  to  be  organized  (among  the  less  nu- 
merous and  more  skilled  North  Italians  the  rate  was  nearly  four 
times  as  great).  In  many  quarters  their  early  strike  breaking 
history  still  condemns  them  and  their  competition  is  feared  even 
when  it  is  not  detected.  That  the  employer  cannot  at  any  mo- 
ment discover  enough  Americans  to  engage  is  held  to  be  no  argu- 
ment.2 Sometimes,  where  the  unions  are  powerful,  the  aspiring 
Italians  are  elbowed  out;  witness  various  San  Francisco  trades 
and  the  longshoremen  of  Boston  in  the  transoceanic  sendee.3 
Inspired  always  by  labor  interests,  many  cities  and  some  states 
have  long  forbidden  or  restricted  the  employment  of  aliens  in 
public  work  and  have  even  sought  to  limit  their  employment  in 
private  undertakings.  For  more  than  ten  years,  American  labor 
organizations  have  aimed  to  secure  national  legislation  restricting 
the  coming  of  such  immigrants  especially  as  the  Italians. 

Disproportionately,  perhaps,  yet  surely,  some  part  of  the 
American  attitude  toward  the  Italians  has  been  determined  by 
their  record  in  crime.  If  this  history  had  in  it  less  that  is  char- 

1 On  this  strike  and  the  preceding,  detailed  accounts  exist.  Report  on  Strike  of 
Textile  Workers  in  Lawrence,  Mass.,  in  igi2  (a  United  States  Senate  document  of 
1912),  and  United  States  Bureau  of  Labor,  The  Miners'  Strike  in  the  Bituminous 
Coal  Field  in  Westmoreland  County,  Pa.,  Washington,  1912. 

2 See,  e.g.,  O.  G.  Cartwright,  The  Middle  West  Side  (New  York,  1914),  p.  41. 

3 Ricciardi,  p.  209;  Barnes,  p.  181.  Cf.  di  Palma-Castiglione,  in  Boll.  Emig., 
1915,  No.  7,  p.  55. 


UNITED  STATES.  TEE  ITALIAN  EXPERIENCE  405 


acteristic  it  might  indeed  count  for  less.  For  it  is  not  so  much 
the  number  of  offences  that  has  fashioned  public  opinion  as  the 
evidence  they  appear  to  give  of  an  uncanny  and  fearsome  dis- 
position. Elemental  natures  seem  to  be  at  work.  Abduction, 
kidnapping,  rape,  stand  forth,  and  the  newspapers  glory  in  the 
details.  The  knife  is  used  by  men  in  their  senses,  by  sober  men; 
and  a startling  record  of  homicides  or  of  attempted  homicides 
appears.  It  is  the  Old  World  way.  That  the  victims  are  them- 
selves Italians,  and  that  the  roots  of  the  dispute  often  lie  in  the 
past  or  in  a misadventure  of  love,  is  insufficiently  realized. 

The  strangest  manifestation  has  been  in  the  “Black  Hand ” out- 
rages, which  in  their  frequency  and  power  of  terrorization  — but 
little  else  — recall  the  “ Molly  McGuire  ” doings  of  the  Irish 
period  of  immigration.  A man  of  means  receives  a scrawled  mis- 
sive bearing  the  sign  of  the  black  hand  and  the  inexorable  demand 
that  a stated  sum  of  money  be  privately  conveyed  to  the  nameless 
writer.  The  robber  is  as  good  as  his  word.  Death  by  the  knife 
or  bomb,  the  blasted  home  or  store,  is  the  proof  which  comes  too 
late.  In  the  first  seven  months  of  1913,  there  were  sixty  Italian 
murders  in  New  York.  The  perpetrators  of  such  crimes  may  have 
been  members  of  the  Camorra  or  Mafia  and  may  have  followed 
their  chosen  prey  to  America;  or,  in  a country  of  defective  police 
administration,  and  dazzled  by  the  success  of  others,  they  have 
been  led  by  imitation  to  choose  the  short,  if  speculative,  road 
to  wealth.  Any  Italian  trader  or  shopkeeper,  sometimes  an  opera 
singer,  is  the  recipient  of  a letter.  With  a more  complicated  mo- 
tive it  is  sent  to  a judge  or  it  prevents  a concert  scheduled  by  an 
orchestra  which  had  discharged  Italian  musicians.  Although  few 
attacks  have  been  made  upon  others  than  Italians  and  most  have 
been  in  New  York,  yet  the  terrorization  has  affected  a larger 
circle.  Since  no  “ Mano  Nera  ” exists  in  Italy,  we  may  say  that 
the  whole  development  has  been  conditioned  by  imported  crim- 
inals or  by  criminals  bred  in  the  American  environment  — as- 
similated, if  you  will,  to  bad  elements  rather  than  to  good  — and 
by  the  presence  of  a large  community  of  aliens.  The  constant 
unwillingness  of  the  Italians  to  act  as  witnesses  in  the  courts  has 
made  the  suppression  of  Black  Hand  crime,  as  of  Italian  crime 


406  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

generally,  all  the  more  difficult.  Yet  some  diminution  has  of  late 
years  taken  place,  thanks,  first  of  all,  to  an  improved  police 
system. 

Other  sorts  of  crime  or  misdemeanor  need  hut  brief  mention. 
Of  drunkenness  there  is  less  than  among  some  nationalities  in  the 
country.  The  abundant  gambling  is  more  or  less  clandestine. 
Violations  of  city  ordinances  are  indeed  beyond  number;  but 
generally  not  serious.  Easily  escaping  from  parental  checks,  the 
Italian  child  often  runs  a career  of  idleness  and  crime  which  pains 
the  hearts  of  his  more  restrained,  if  less  assimilated,  parents,  and 
may  lead  them  to  regret  the  day  of  their  coming.1 

In  the  matter  of  dependency,  the  burden,  thus  far  at  least,  has 
been  less  than  low  earnings  and  unemployment  might  lead  one  to 
expect.  I believe  it  to  be  true  that  the  breaking  point  is  reached 
later  by  the  Italians  than  by  many  other  groups  in  our  population. 
Though  starving,  they  often  continue  at  work  — at  any  work 
they  can  fold.  That  distress  which  is  often  the  lot  of  new  arrivals 
various  Italian  organizations  seek  to  prevent:  in  New  York,  the 
Society  for  Italian  Immigrants  watches  over  their  debarkation, 
helps  them  to  find  employment,  and  otherwise  assists  them,  while 
the  Casa  per  gli  Italiani  supplies  beds  and  food.  If  collapse  comes 
later,  American  agencies  are  likely  to  give  succor.  In  the  first 
half  of  the  year  1916  more  Italians  than  persons  of  any  other 
nationality  were  aided  by  the  Charity  Organization  Society  of 
New  York.  It  is  when  their  families  are  with  them  in  the  United 
States  that  they  appeal  for  aid;  the  exhausted  or  starved  bodies, 
stricken  with  illness,  need  repair.  The  very  frugal  ways  of  the 

1 A statistical  analysis  of  Italian  crime  is  in  Immigration  Commission,  xxxvi. 
See  also  Massachusetts,  Report  of  Commission  of  Immigration,  pp.  104-106.  Among 
many  secondary  accounts  see  N.  Colajanni,  “ La  criminalita  degli  italiani  negli 
Stati  Uniti,”  an  essay  (pp.  1 15-192)  in  a composite  volume,  Gl'  italiani  negli  Stati 
Uniti,  Rome  and  Naples,  1910.  On  the  Black  Hand  see,  besides  the  files  of  the 
newspapers,  F.  M.  White,  “ How  the  United  States  Fosters  the  Black  Hand,” 
Outlook , October  30,  1909,  pp.  495-500;  and  idem,  “ The  Black  Hand  in  Control  in 
Italian  New  York,”  ibid.,  August  16, 1913,  pp.  857-865;  S.  Reid,  “ The  Death  Sign,” 
Independent,  April  6,  1911,  pp.  711-715;  A.  Woods,  “The  Problem  of  the  Black 
Hand,”  McClure's  Magazine,  May,  1909,  pp.  40-47;  and  the  Statuto  and  Regolamento 
of  an  interesting,  if  rather  impotent,  counter-agency,  Societa  Italiana  La  Man-o 
Bianca,  Chicago,  1908.  According  to  a report  published  by  Carpi  (ii,  p.  244)  forgery 
and  the  coinage  of  money  were  characteristic  crimes  forty-odd  years  ago. 


UNITED  STATES.  THE  ITALIAN  EXPERIENCE  407 


unmarried  or  of  those  whose  families  are  abroad  enable  them  to 
tide  over  most  personal  difficulties  out  of  savings,  but  often,  no 
doubt,  the  pinch  is  communicated  to  the  dependents  in  Italy. 
There  are  indications  that  the  repugnance  to  asking  aid  which 
exists  among  the  newcomers  wears  away  somewhat  with  the 
lapse  of  time,  and  it  is  quite  possible  that  when  a larger  fraction 
of  the  Italians  have  reached  old  age  they,  like  so  many  of  their 
predecessors  in  immigration,  will  frequently  fall  a burden  upon 
charitable  institutions.  If  that  should  happen,  the  reason  would 
lie,  not  in  such  thriftlessness  as  the  Irish  and  some  other  groups 
have  manifested,  but  contrariwise  (in  addition  to  low  wages)  in 
that  blind  economy  which  often  sacrifices  physique  and  earning 
power.1 

When  the  American  people  are  not  swayed  by  the  industrial 
or  the  labor  argument  or  by  such  manifestations  as  delinquency 
and  dependency,  their  attitude  may  take  any  of  various  turns. 
Sometimes  it  is  one  of  indifference  — why  should  one  bother 
about  the  Italians  at  all  ? Sometimes  an  ideal  principle  is  ap- 
plied, such  as  that  the  movement  of  men  must  be  free,  and  for 
this  principle  a traditional  basis  may  be  found  in  the  practice  of 
the  United  States;  or  it  is  argued  that  the  country  should  offer 
an  asylum  for  the  oppressed  and  a democratic  home  for  those  who 
seek  equality  of  opportunity. 

More  generally,  a direct  personal  reaction  overshadows  or  ex- 
cludes an  ideal.  By  his  tongue  and  his  ways,  the  Italian  is  felt  to 
be  a “ foreigner,”  and  even  employers  sometimes  avoid  him  on 
that  account.  He  has  a low  standard  of  living,  and  that  is  ever 
an  unpleasant  consideration  to  those  who  wish  to  live  better.  His 
crowding  and  dirt  are  assumed  to  be  of  his  own  choice;  in  any 
case  are  unlovely  and  to  be  avoided.  His  children  are  too  nu- 
merous, and  perhaps  his  low  standard  of  living  shows  nowhere  so 

1 Immigration  Commission,  xxxiv,  xxxv.  Less  about  the  nationality  of  immi- 
grants aided  is  to  be  found  in  public  records  than  in  private.  See  a chapter  (x)  by 
Barrows  in  Lord,  Trenor,  and  Barrows.  In  Boll.  Emig.  are  frequent  references  to 
situations  calling  for  aid.  See  also  B.  Attolico,  “ La  ‘ Society  for  Italian  Immigrants  ’ 
e la  Casa  per  gli  Italiani  in  New  York,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1912,  No.  3,  pp.  36-48.  An 
earlier  but  broad  discussion  of  the  work  of  various  agencies  is  in  Conte,  pp.  133-185. 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


408 

plainly  as  in  that  pressure  of  baby  cart  upon  push  cart  which 
makes  the  Italian  streets  of  New  York  picturesque.  Contempt, 
or  at  best  contemptuous  tolerance,  prompts  the  vernacular 
epithets  “Wop,”  “Guinea,”  and  “Dago.”  In  a country  where 
yet  the  distinction  between  white  man  and  black  is  intended  as 
a distinction  in  value  as  well  as  in  ethnography  it  is  no  compli- 
ment to  the  Italian  to  deny  him  whiteness,  yet  that  actually 
happens  with  considerable  frequency.1 

Depreciation  in  its  intenser  forms  may  be  feared  by  the  Italian 
and  lead  to  clashes.  A few  years  ago  an  Italian  consul  advised 
those  of  his  countrymen  who  objected  to  such  an  attitude  to  stay 
away  from  certain  parts  of  the  South.2  Sometimes  a trivial  in- 
cident converts  opposition  into  acts  of  hostility.  The  memory 
still  lives  of  the  New  Orleans  episode  of  1891  when  the  lynching 
of  Italians  — reports  say  of  eleven  — strained  the  relations  of 
Italy  and  the  United  States.  Accused  of  shooting  the  Chief  of 
Police,  three  of  these  immigrants  had  just  been  condemned  by  a 
jury  and  eleven  acquitted,  while  others  were  yet  untried,  when  the 
cry  “ Kill  the  Italians!  ” prevailed.3  The  case  is  by  no  means 
unique.  Late  in  1914,  in  southern  Illinois,  when  race  antipathy 
and  economic  competition  had  gone  before,  some  Italians  were 
lynched  for  killing  Americans.4 

It  is  always  hazardous  to  try  to  guess  the  drift  of  argument  and 
desire  in  a great  country.  But  the  ruling  attitude  on  immigration 
now  stands  fairly  clear.  Fortified  by  a steady  access  of  support 
during  many  years,  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  in  1917, 

1 See  the  account  (p.  361)  of  the  qualities  of  the  railroad  laborers.  “ One  ‘ white 
man  ’ is  as  good  as  two  or  three  Italians!  ” has  been  said  on  some  piers  in  New 
York;  Barnes,  p.  9.  Ambassador  Mayor  was  startled  to  overhear,  in  the  South, 
the  words,  “ It  makes  no  difference  whom  I employ,  negro,  Italian  or  white  man 
Mayor  des  Planches,  p.  144. 

2 Moroni,  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1913,  No.  1,  p.  65. 

3 See  the  study  by  Professor  Pierantoni,  I fatti  di  Nuova  Orleans  e il  dirilto  inter- 
nazionale,  Rome,  1891;  also  his  article,  “ I linciaggi  negli  Stati  Uniti  e la  emigra- 
zione  italiana,”  in  L’ltalia  Coloniale,  April-May,  1904,  pp.  423-447,  and  July, 
1904,  pp.  37-52.  In  the  United  States  the  episode  increased  the  pressure  for  re- 
striction of  immigration;  see  H.  C.  Lodge,  “ Lynch  Law  and  Unrestricted  Immi- 
gration,” North  American  Review,  May,  1891,  pp.  602-612. 

4 Di  Palma-Castiglione,  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1915,  No.  6,  p.  41. 


UNITED  STATES.  TEE  ITALIAN  EXPERIENCE  409 


succeeded  in  enacting  over  the  President’s  veto  — a very  rare 
occurrence  — a law  prohibiting  the  admission  of  aliens  who  fail 
to  pass  a simple  literacy  test.  No  other  important  group  of  im- 
migrants is  so  broadly  affected  by  the  new  law  as  the  South 
Italians.  And  today  (1919)  still  further  restriction  is  proposed. 

What  of  the  future  ? It  is  not  difficult  to  discern  some  of  its 
ingredients.  The  North  Italians  will  probably  be  a larger  fraction 
of  our  Italian  population  than  they  have  at  any  time  been  save 
in  the  early  years  of  their  coming.  For  the  good  name  of  Italy, 
that  is  hardly  a disadvantage.  Even  where  the  distinction  is 
popularly  blurred  and  all  are  called  just  “ Italians,”  those  of  the 
North  by  reason  of  their  qualities  are  in  better  repute.1 

Undoubtedly  those  South  Italians  who  stay  in  the  country  will, 
as  they  take  on  American  ways,  rise  in  estimation.  When  they 
lose  their  sobriety,  habits  of  economy,  devotion  to  their  customs 
and  traditions  and  attachment  to  their  kind,  one  student  has 
ironically  observed,  they  tend  to  come  more  into  favor!  It  is 
surely  so,  for  their  neighbors  then  find  them  less  inscrutable.  The 
little  changes,  it  must  be  conceded,  come  quickly.  The  advent  of 
a linen  collar  soon  brings  an  altered  speech.  The  newly  arrived 
youth  in  the  theater  clamors  for  “ musica,”  violently  anglicizing 
the  “ u.”  “ All  right  ” he  transforms  to  “ oraitte  “ yes  ” to 
“ iesse  ” — and  so  through  the  whole  essential  vocabulary.2 
Giovannina  becomes  Jenny,  Domenica,  Minnie,  while  Giovanni 
and  Giuseppe,  luckier,  become  John  and  Joe;  and  illustrious 
family  names,  like  Aquinas  and  D’Adamos,  have  been  known  to 
change,  by  a process  surely  of  magic,  into  Quinns  and  Adamses ! 3 
It  is  precisely  such  changes  as  these,  trivial  to  all  appearances, 
that  make  the  Italian  feel  himself  to  be  an  American  and  the 
American  to  regard  him  as  no  longer  quite  an  Italian.  By  schools 

1 Thirty  years  ago,  in  California,  Gardini  wrote  fii,  p.  223),  “ I was  very  happy 
to  hear  my  compatriots  spoken  of  with  so  much  praise  and  such  sympathy,  a thing 
I had  not  heard  in  New  York.” 

2 Cf.  Bernardy,  America  vissuta,  pp.  318  f.  She  notes  that  whiskey  becomes 

vischio,”  which  is  good  Italian  for  “ birdlime  ”! 

3 Roche,  p.  no. 


4io 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


and  philanthropic  agencies  ever  greater  momentum  is  given  to  the 
transformation  of  the  immigrants.  Through  the  teaching  of 
English  or  of  the  requirements  for  citizenship,  somewhat  broadly 
conceived,  through  classes  for  the  women  in  cookery  and  the  care 
of  children,  the  evangel  of  “ Americanization  ” makes  itself  heard; 
yet  in  its  magnitude  the  task  of  conversion  is  stupendous  and  so 
far  as  the  mass  are  concerned  can  never  reach  far  nor  deeply.  It 
is  for  those  of  the  second  generation  that  the  hope  is  best  based. 
Handicapped  though  they  be  by  many  of  the  parents’  handicaps, 
enjoying  a precocious  independence,  they  are  yet  amenable  to  a 
wise  steering,  and  could  they  receive  it,  would  surely  rise  well 
above  their  parents’  fortunes. 

Unless  the  American  birth  rate  should  greatly  decline  and  the 
Italian  immigration  and  birth  rate  be  not  only  maintained  at 
high  levels  but  extended,  the  Italian  stock  will  one  day  lose  its 
identity  in  the  United  States.  True,  the  more  immediate  show- 
ing is  one  of  persistency.  Census  materials  of  1900,  only  recently 
made  available,  show  that  in  Rhode  Island  Italian  women  aged 
less  than  forty-five  and  married  for  from  ten  to  twenty  years  had 
an  average  of  five  children  each,  or  twice  as  many  as  native 
women  of  a corresponding  class,  and  that  children  followed  one 
another  twice  as  rapidly  among  Italian  families  as  among  native.1 
In  1915,  roughly,  22  per  cent  of  the  children  born  in  Connecticut, 
20  per  cent  of  all  born  in  New  York  state  and  in  Rhode  Island, 
nearly  1 2 per  cent  of  all  bom  in  Massachusetts,  and  9 per  cent  of 
all  born  in  Pennsylvania  had  an  Italian  father.2  We  are  plainly 
concerned  therefore  with  a stock  that  has  taken  a tenacious  hold 
upon  the  country.  But  it  is  a hold  that  must  relax,  for  the  Italian 
stock  has  arrived  too  late  to  lend  its  traits  perceptibly  to  the  mass 
of  the  population.  Such  a situation  as  has  come  about  in  Argen- 
tina will  never  be  even  approximated  in  this  country.  In  1858, 

1 Immigration  Commission,  ii,  pp.  462-464;  other  data  also  are  in  this  report. 

2 U.  S.  Bureau  of  the  Census,  Birth  Statistics  for  the  Registration  Area  of  the 
United  States,  1915,  First  Annual  Report  (Washington,  1917),  p.  56.  Intermarriage 
of  Italians  with  those  of  other  stock  has  certainly  not  yet  gone  far.  On  some  tend- 
ency of  Italians  in  New  York  to  marry  Jewesses,  see  a summarized  report  in  Immi- 
gration Journal,  September,  1916,  pp.  88  f. 


UNITED  STATES.  TEE  ITALIAN  EXPERIENCE  4II 

we  have  seen,  the  foreign-born  Italians  of  Santa  Fe  province  were 
already  2.8  per  cent  of  the  population,  and  only  beginning  to 
increase,  but  in  the  United  States  the  year  1910  had  come  before 
the  Italians,  foreign-born  and  native  together,  two  million  and 
more  strong,  had  attained  a somewhat  similar  fraction  (2.3  per 
cent)  of  the  whole. 


BOOK  IV 

ITALY  AMONG  THE  NATIONS 


CHAPTER  XXI 


THE  EMIGRANTS  — A STUDY  OF  MOTIVE  AND  TRAIT 

Of  the  externals  of  the  emigrant’s  life  much  has  been  written. 
How  he  thinks  and  feels,  however,  what  kindles  and  what  chills 
him,  what  his  deeper  moods  are  and  the  springs  of  his  action  are 
matters  mainly  hidden,  guarded,  and  unconfessed.  A Cellini,  a 
Rousseau,  a Goethe  bares  the  record  of  his  life’s  course;  but  the 
emigrant,  besides  lacking  the  faculty  of  literary  expression,  ac- 
cepts the  fact  that  for  the  world  he  is  a supremely  unimportant 
person.  What  is  more,  he  is  less  to  be  thought  of,  after  all,  as  an 
individual  than  as  a composite.  Hence  he  cannot  speak.  And 
we  can  only  guess. 

Out  of  fragmentary  pictures  of  the  emigrants’  lives  in  Italy  and 
abroad,  I have  tried  to  weave  together  some  of  the  tissues  of  this 
composite,  to  reach  out  from  the  single  experience  to  a generalized 
character.  Some  qualities  and  traits,  because  they  are  common  to 
many  more  emigrants  than  are  others,  I have  freely  emphasized; 
still  others,  particularly  if  they  have  stood  forth  sharply  in  the 
chapters  dealing  with  the  Italians  abroad,  I have  here  touched 
only  lightly  in  passing.  Moreover,  the  process  and  appraisal  are 
alike  personal,  much  more  so  than  the  long  narrative  that  has  pre- 
ceded. Only  the  circumstance  that  the  result  in  general  accords 
with  the  conditions  there  set  forth  gives  it  some  claim  to  objective 
validity. 

Let  us  begin  quite  at  the  beginning,  with  the  very  motive  to 
emigration  itself.  That  assuredly  must  govern  much  that  fol- 
lows. Speaking  of  the  importation  of  negro  slaves  into  South 
America,  Signora  Ferrero  once  asked  whether  all  emigration  were 
not  involuntary.1  Has  the  Italian  been  so  ? Is  the  meaning  of 
those  conditions  described  in  the  earlier  chapters  of  this  book  that 

1 Lombroso-Ferrero,  p.  ioi. 


415 


41 6 ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

the  mass  have  been  banished  ? Behind  the  departure  of  the 
negroes  from  Africa  was  the  physical  constraint  exercised  by  their 
captors.  Behind  the  departure  of  Garibaldi,  of  Fanti  and  a long 
line  of  their  kind  1 was  the  threat  of  death  if  they  stayed.  Behind 
the  departure  of  the  emigrants  has  often  been  the  threat  of  that 
slow  decline,  that  death  in  life,  which  may  make  the  act  of  emi- 
gration, at  a critical  juncture,  almost  like  a simple  reflex  action  or 
obedience  to  an  inexorable  behest.  “ We  should  have  eaten  each 
other  had  we  stayed,”  the  peasants  have  sometimes  been  re- 
ported to  have  said. 

But  imminence  of  disaster  has  not  been  usual.  The  morrow 
and  the  morrow’s  morrow  have  been  fairly  discernible  ahead. 
Emigration  is  no  device  of  emergency  relief.  There  is  time  and  to 
spare  for  making  one  great  rational  inference : so  irksome  are  the 
terms  of  living  that  flight  is  desirable.  All  else  may  be  non- 
rational,  the  decision,  for  instance,  to  go  to  one  country  rather 
than  another;  but  not  this  primary  reaction.2  On  the  other 
hand,  there  is  in  all  agricultural  folk,  or  at  least  in  those  that 
possess  even  a bit  of  land,  so  great  an  inertia,  such  an  identifica- 
tion of  the  whole  content  of  existence  with  home  and  habitat, 
that  the  decision  to  flee  can  come  only  slowly:  and  with  the  mass 
it  has  been  as  with  the  individual.  That  is  why,  as  late  as  half  a 
century  ago,  men  were  led  (for  example,  Adolf  Wagner)  to  regard 
the  Italians  as  a people  not  given  to  emigrate  — a people  as  at- 
tached to  the  soil,  some  one  has  said,  as  an  oyster  to  its  rock. 

The  notion  of  flight  is  rudimentary,  without  doubt,  yet  of  itself 
too  simple  to  explain  what  happens.  Rarely  if  ever  does  it  alone 
govern  the  man’s  conduct.  Companioned  with  it  in  his  con- 
sciousness is  the  notion,  however  vague,  of  a tangible  positive  gain 
to  be  secured,  a notion  that  generally  depends  upon  the  evidences 
of  others’  success.  There  must  be  here  a whole  gamut  of  combina- 
tions, the  idea  of  flight  paramount  at  one  extreme,  that  of  gain 
paramount  at  the  other.  For  any  individual  the  promise  of  gain 

1 They  form  a large  part  of  the  numerous  warriors,  literary  folk,  and  others  in- 
dividually described  in  a valuable  if  curious  work  by  F.  F.  Carloni,  GV  italiani  all' 
estero  dal  secolo  VIII  at  di  nostri,  2 vols.,  Citta  di  Castello,  1888,  1890. 

2 The  local  and  special  variations  and  accompaniments  of  this  reaction  are 
finely  described  by  F.  Coletti,  Dell’  emigrazione  italiana  (Milan,  1912),  secs.  40-51. 


THE  EMIGRANTS  — MOTIVE  AND  TRAIT 


41 7 


must  be  felt  to  be  more  or  less  indirect.  In  the  most  elementary- 
case,  he  wills  to  emigrate  because  the  mass  do,  accepting  the 
rationality  of  their  quest ; 1 and  the  contagion  may  extend  so  far 
as  to  lead  him  to  follow  the  same  occupation  abroad  that  the 
others  do  — four-fifths,  it  is  claimed,  of  the  emigrants  from 
Laurenzana  (Basilicata)  became  bootblacks  in  cities  of  the  United 
States.2  He  may  gaze  forlornly  at  the  houses  erected  by  emi- 
grants who  have  returned,  and  himself  depart  because  such  an 
emblem  of  success  has  impressed  itself  on  his  mind.3  He  may 
pause  to  envy  the  coat  and  cigar  displayed  by  them  — “ they 
come  back  arrayed  like  signori  ” has  been  a common  observation.4 
He  notes  that  they  send  back  money,  and  coming  home,  buy 
land.  Or  he  listens  to  the  recitals  of  emigrants  returned,  who 
asseverate  that  America  is  better  than  Italy,  or  to  the  sanguine 
words  of  agents  of  the  steamship  lines.  Or,  himself  venturing 
abroad  once,  he  may  return,  complete  his  comparison,  and  decide 
to  sally  forth  again;  it  is  a common  case.5 

Assurance  of  well-being  ahead  he  can  rarely  have.  He  must  take 
a chance,  and  if  there  were  not  implanted  in  every  man  some 
readiness  to  do  so,  emigration  might  not  take  place.  Particularly 
among  the  younger  men  the  disposition  may  assume  a very  active 
form,  even  dominating  all  other  impulses.  The  stock  exchange, 
the  race  track,  in  South  Italy  the  lottery,  are  institutional  testi- 
mony to  the  power  of  the  risk-taking  motive,  which  is  usually 
coupled  with  an  egoistic  expectation  of  selection  of  oneself  for 
fortune’s  favors.  (How  finely  Samuel  Johnson,  in  one  of  his 
Rambler  papers,  painted  the  mood!)  The  stage,  the  law  are 
familiar  instances  of  occupations  in  which  great  prizes  so  allure 
that  the  mass  of  the  competitors  are  actually  underpaid  for  their 
sacrifices.  Perhaps  emigration  is  another  instance.  There  is 
question  here  not  merely  of  the  symbolic  influence  of  those  who 
turn  out  to  be  better  off  abroad  than  they  had  been  at  home,  or 

1 For  a crude  statistical  measure  of  the  strength  of  the  factor  “ imitation,”  see 
Inch.  Pari.,  v",  p.  714. 

2 A.  Rossi,  “ Vantaggi  e danni  ’ dell  emigrazione  nel  mezzogiorno  d’ltalia,” 
Boll.  Emig.,  1908,  No.  13,  p.  16. 

3 Cf.,  e.g.,  Inch.  Pari.,  vH,  p.  507. 

4 Rossi,  p.  25,  and  passim.  6 Ibid.,  p.  13. 


418 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


who  come  back  to  live  comfortably,  but  of  those  who  after  only  a 
few  months  send  home  a thousand  lire,  or  after  ten  or  twelve 
years  return  with  ten  to  twenty  thousand  lire,  of  several  far- 
famed  men — speaking  provincially — whose  amassings  have  run 
into  the  hundreds  of  thousands.  The  compelling  force  of  such 
examples  upon  the  popular  imagination  can  hardly  be  overdrawn. 
They  provide  the  bacillus  which  produces  what  has  sometimes 
been  called  the  fever  of  emigration.1 

The  affinities  of  the  emigration  movement  with  the  phenom- 
enon, universally  observed  in  modem  countries,  of  migration 
from  rural  into  urban  districts  have  been  curiously  ignored.2  In 
Italy,  while  the  cities  have  grown  in  recent  decades  by  accretions 
from  the  country,  there  has  simultaneously  been  a tremendous 
movement  from  the  farming  community  to  the  foreign  city,  let 
us  say  chiefly  the  North  American  city.  Doubtless  the  stories  re- 
lated by  those  who  had  returned  to  Italy,  especially  in  the  earlier 
days,  the  vivid  tales  told  by  the  musicians  errant  and  their  kin, 
served  to  fire  the  imaginations  of  the  people;  much  as  the  fame 
of  Paris  or  London  filters  out  into  the  remoter  countryside.  A 
deep  human  need,  a welling  gregarious  impulse,  has  only  in  the 
nineteenth  and  twentieth  centuries  found  its  clearest  expression, 
for  these  centuries  have  brought  an  era  when  more  cities  and 
larger  cities  have  been  economically  sustainable  than  ever  before. 
The  opposite  migration,  from  city  to  country,  is  universally  rare; 
and  correspondingly  there  has  been  no  movement  from  the  Ital- 
ian cities  to  foreign  rural  regions,  nor  even,  in  any  noteworthy 
sense,  to  foreign  cities;  and  all  attempts  to  dislodge  Italians  from 
the  American  urban  centers  have  encountered  emphatic  resist- 
ance. For  living  and  acting  with  others,  for  watching  the  human 
drama  in  its  intenser  moments  closely  at  hand  an  equivalent  is  not 

1 On  the  influence  of  exceptional  success  see  many  passages  in  Inch.  Pari.;  also 
Rossi,  passim,  esp.  pp.  19  f.,  25. 

2 But  Carpi,  nearly  half  a century  ago,  quoted  A.  Caccianiga  in  a significant 
passage:  “ The  first  departure  of  a son  usually  aims  at  better  earnings;  the  second 
often  adds  to  the  motive  of  profit  a love  for  the  pleasures  already  tasted  in  the  un- 
bridled life  of  the  great  cities,  and  aspirations  toward  an  existence  diverse  from 
rural  modes.”  (i,  p.  66.) 


TEE  EMIGRANTS  — MOTIVE  AND  TRAIT  419 

easily  to  be  had,  and  for  the  Italians  even  less  so,  assuredly,  than 
for  many  another  people. 

Those  who  have  studied  the  exodus  from  country  to  city  have 
generally  averred  that  it  is  the  more  active  spirits  that  participate. 
In  a large  view  the  affirmation  must  apply  as  well  to  a general 
emigration.  To  venture  one’s  all  — even  if  that  be  little  — amid 
incalculable  perils  and  the  friendlessness  of  differing  peoples  re- 
quires a certain  staunchness  of  soul  that  many  men  lack.  In 
energy  and  prowess  the  emigrant  must  run  well  ahead  of  his 
sessile  neighbor.  “ His  is  the  life  of  the  conqueror  compared  with 
that  of  the  citizen  content  to  count  his  life’s  days  upon  his  cal- 
endar.” 1 Small  wonder  that  other  lands  sometimes  speak  of  im- 
migrant “ invasions.”  It  of  course  does  not  follow  that  those  who 
do  not  emigrate  are  devoid  of  the  necessary  qualities.  They  may 
indeed  lack  them  wholly,  or  the  qualities  may  be  latent.  And 
sometimes  those  who  go  are  so  sheltered  at  every  stage  that  in  the 
first  instance  they  may  be  the  veriest  weaklings.  But  in  those 
who  made  pioneer  settlements  in  Argentina  and  South  Brazil,  in 
those  who  have  gone  into  the  outlying  parts  of  Europe  and  Asia, 
as  far  as  the  mines  of  Mysore,  in  those  Sicilian  fishermen  who, 
after  the  Suez  Canal  was  opened,  betook  themselves  to  Australia, 
in  those  wandering  minstrels  who  have  carried  their  traffic  in 
music  into  a large  part  of  the  cities  of  the  world,  in  all  of  these,  by 
way  merely  of  example,  the  persistence,  the  tireless  verve  of  the 
conqueror  has  been  present.  They  are  of  the  race  of  Columbus 
still.  In  those  who  have  journeyed  far  or  made  their  journeys 
repeatedly  — like  the  “ swallows  ” who  go  to  Argentina  for  the 
harvest  — a certain  superiority  to  circumstance  appears,  a ripe- 
ness and  robust  self-assurance,  an  urbanity  even,  qualities  not 
infrequently  encountered  among  far-travelled  men  of  leisure  or 
position  but  till  now  met  rarely  among  humble  folk. 

One  of  the  commonest  opinions  expressed  in  both  North  and 
South  American  writings  holds  that  immigration  is  primarily  a 
tribute  to  a country’s  democratic  institutions  and  liberal  civiliza- 
tion. The  immigrants  are  idealists;  they  thirst  for  freedom,  and 

1 Bami,  “La  Svizzera  contemporanea,”  etc.,  p.  241. 


420 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


have  come  where  they  know  it  can  be  tasted.  Often,  undoubtedly, 
the  opinion  has  had  a deep  basis  in  truth,  but  at  least  in  its  em- 
phasis it  has  too  often  been  self-flattering.  Not  only  can  the 
Italian  immigrants  not  approach  closely  to  the  characteristic  life 
of  the  Western  countries  to  which  they  go,  but  much  the  same 
types  have  entered  countries  like  France,  Germany,  even  inimical 
Austria  into  whose  institutions  they  have  not  pretended  that  they 
would  fit  themselves.  As  for  those  who  have  come  to  the  United 
States,  I have  sometimes  heard  it  said  that  they  have  desired  to 
pursue  ideal  ends  and  would  do  so  more  freely,  did  not  their 
families  impose  on  them  a burden  of  poverty;  yet  single  immi- 
grants, as  any  one  may  observe,  live  as  meagerly  and  as  much  in 
isolation  as  their  married  brethren. 

Rooted  much  more  deeply  in  the  characters  of  the  emigrants  is 
that  pecuniary  motive  which  I have  been  led  to  stress  even  in  the 
first  chapter  of  this  book.  Nothing  could  be  more  striking  than 
the  frequency  with  which  ideas  of  economic  well-being  and  of 
country  are  reconciled  by  identification.  At  Goeschenen  Professor 
Villari  (whom  I have  already  cited  in  a similar  context)  asked 
some  workmen,  “Are  you  Italians  ? ” and  they  replied,  “We  were 
born  in  Italy  but  are  not  Italians,  because  we  have  had  to  seek  our 
bread  elsewhere.”  1 And  thirty  years  earlier,  to  take  another 
striking  example,  a Belgian  sojourner  in  Italy,  Emile  de  La- 
veleye,  recorded  the  dramatic  language  of  a manifesto  by  which 
the  peasants  of  Lombardy  replied  to  a ministerial  decree  urging 
them  not  to  emigrate: 

What  do  you  mean  by  a nation,  Mr.  Minister  ? Is  it  the  throng  of  the 
unhappy  ? Aye,  then  we  are  truly  the  nation.  . . . We  plant  and  we 
reap  wheat,  but  never  do  wTe  taste  white  bread.  We  cultivate  the  grape 
but  wre  drink  no  wine.  We  raise  animals  for  food  but  we  eat  no  meat.  We 
are  clothed  in  rags.  . . . And,  in  spite  of  all  this,  you  counsel  us,  Mr. 
Minister,  not  to  abandon  our  country.  But  is  that  land,  in  which  one  can- 
not live  by  toil,  one’s  country  ? 2 

It  is  a sentiment  sufficiently  ancient,  Ubi  bene  ibi  patria,  Greek 
even  before  it  became  Roman,  reuttered  and  rephrased,  sung 
with  changes,  made  to  live  again  by  millions. 

1 P.  Villari,  “ L’emigrazione,”  etc.,  pp.  53  f. 

2 Lettres  d’ltalie,  1878-1879  (Paris,  1880),  p.  350. 


THE  EMIGRANTS  — MOTIVE  AND  TRAIT 


421 


Neither  love  for  the  new  country  nor  hatred  for  Italy  is  neces- 
sarily involved  when  the  emigrant  sallies  forth  to  satisfy  his 
primary  needs.  A discreditable  materialism  cannot  be  imputed 
to  him,  for  he  has  not  risen  high  enough  to  be  justified  in  dis- 
ciplining his  material  desires.  Economic  redemption  cannot 
wait  for  other  redemption.  He  will  go  to  that  country  which  his 
special  circumstances  and  the  chance  for  gain  make  most  inviting. 
It  may  be,  like  the  United  States,  a country  of  liberal  laws;  but 
he  will  avoid  a country  of  liberal  laws  if  its  offer  of  material  re- 
wards be  slight.  It  may  be  an  illiberal  country,  like  the  Brazil  of 
the  fazendas;  yet  he  will  go  there,  if  the  prospective  reward  be 
seductive.  The  innumerable  guidebooks  for  Italian  emigrants 
in  the  countries  to  which  they  go  never  assume  that  any  other 
aim  than  the  pecuniary  is  central.1  And  from  liberal  and  illiberal 
land  alike  the  emigrant  will  return  when  making  money  becomes 
difficult.  So  powerful  is  this  aim  that  it  has  led  to  a defiance  of 
language  barriers  more  general  and  more  emphatic  than  can  be 
found  in  any  other  great  emigrating  people,  unless  the  Chinese 
be  so  considered.  The  English  and  the  Irish  have  gone  almost 
exclusively  into  the  English-speaking  countries,  the  Germans 
mainly  into  countries  whose  tongues  stand  related  to  theirs,  the 
Italians  quite  as  frequently  into  Anglo-Saxon,  Germanic,  and  other 
lands  as  into  Latin  countries.2  As  the  professional  soldier  of  a 
past  age  rendered  an  impersonal  service  to  whatever  nation  would 
pay  him  his  hire,  so  the  Italian  laborer  has  looked  no  farther  than 
his  wage  and  what  it  will  buy.  For  this  modern  Hessian  the 
world  is  a labor  market  and  that  country  stands  first  in  his  favor 

1 One  example  will  suffice  (G.  Ceppi,  p.  56) : “ The  principal,  almost  the  sole 
aspiration  of  the  emigrants  who  arrive  in  the  Argentine  Republic,  is  to  make  much 
money,  the  greatest  possible  amount  of  money,  in  order  to  enjoy  it  at  home.” 

By  a curious  custom  which  prevails  in  some  parts  of  South  Italy  a young  man 
will  be  married  by  a legal  ceremony,  in  order  to  secure  the  dowry  that  will  pay  for 
his  emigration,  but  postpone  the  religious  ceremony  until  his  return. 

2 G.  Ferrero  has  overstated  the  tendency  of  the  Irish  and  Germans  to  establish 
themselves  in  lands  of  diverse  tongues,  and  understated  that  of  the  Italians;  the 
latter,  however,  had  not  at  his  writing  shown  their  characteristics  so  explicitly  as 
they  have  since  done.  What  he  says,  however,  of  the  Germans’  relatively  greater 
tendency  to  be  assimilated  in  the  countries  to  which  they  have  gone  still  holds.  See 
his  L’Europa  giovane  (Milan,  1897),  pp.  116-118. 


422 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


which  bids  the  highest  wage.  The  economic  principle  once  so 
established  in  his  mind,  he  will  often  be  led  to  migrate  even  when 
his  wage  at  home  — in  such  a region  as  the  Marches,  for  example 
— is  yet  sufficient  to  a comfortable  subsistence. 

It  used  to  be  said  that  the  Italians  are  the  Chinese  of  Europe.1 
That  is,  to  make  clear  the  comparison,  they  were  held  to  be  devoid 
of  a sense  of  solidarity  with  the  labor  groups  about  them.  While 
other  workers  would  demand  that  toil  should  be  paid  for  in  com- 
fortable living,  the  Italians  would  live  miserably  in  order  that 
their  toil  might  be  somehow  paid  for.  “ It  is  solely  the  dullards 
and  the  strikers  who  come  back  without  savings,”  said  a contadino 
of  Cosenza,2  and  only  incessant  pressure  by  organized  labor  in  the 
immigrant  countries  has  reduced  somewhat  the  opprobrium  in 
which  the  striker  has  been  held  by  the  Italians.  Only  gradually, 
and  today  still  far  from  perfectly,  has  the  Italian  learned  to  steer 
clear  of  strike  breaking.  He  continues  generally  to  deplore  a 
strike,  and  rather  than  wait  for  the  contest  to  end  he  betakes  him- 
self to  a different  labor  market,  or  returns  to  his  home  in  Italy. 
To  regard  him  as  deliberately  hostile  to  other  laborers  would  be 
puerile.  His  traits  are  rudimentary  still  and  a sense  of  oneness 
with  other  toilers  has  simply  not  found  a place  among  them.  In 
another  sphere,  that  of  politics,  the  same  economic  motive  — the 
desire  for  a job  or  for  privileges  — and  not  a generous  soli- 
darity, or  a new  allegiance  of  sentiment,  has  often  led  to  his 
naturalization. 

Not  cardinally  the  passion  to  earn  but  the  passion  to  save  is  the 
form  which  the  economic  motive  assumes.  Here  is  one  of  the 
clearest  traits  of  the  Italians,  in  its  definiteness  sharply  marking 
them  off  from  most  other  emigrant  peoples.  They  stand,  for 
example,  at  the  opposite  pole  to  that  of  the  Irish.  Near  them,  in 
the  United  States,  are  the  Austrians.  And  everywhere  the  Ital- 
ians of  the  South  save  more  eagerly  than  those  of  the  North  — do 
they  not  also  more  commonly  prefer  those  occupations  which 
remunerate  more  promptly  and  frequently  ? 

1 The  phrase  has  had  much  currency.  For  an  essay  taking  its  cue  from  it,  see  V. 
Spangberg,  Europas  Kineser,  Stockholm,  1897. 

2 Rossi,  “Vantaggi  e danni,”  etc.,  p.  n. 


TEE  EMIGRANTS  — MOTIVE  AND  TRAIT 


423 


This  passion  colors  the  details  of  the  Italians’  lives.  Every- 
thing must  be  done  cheaply,  directly,  without  waste.  They  are 
in  all  things  bargain  hunters.  Among  the  nationalities  in  Law- 
rence, Massachusetts,  it  was  found  upon  investigation  several 
years  ago  that  they  peculiarly  were  without  account  books,  not 
following  the  practice  of  trading  exclusively  with  one  firm.1 
When  it  is  necessary  to  move,  family  and  friends  do  the  work,  a 
cartage  fee  being  rarely  paid.  Sobriety  and  frugality  rule  the 
routine  of  their  living.  Always  too  little  rather  than  too  much  is 
their  principle.  They  must  be  abstemious.  Perhaps  one  reason 
why  the  South  Italians  at  home  and  abroad  partake  more  spar- 
ingly of  alcoholic  drinks  than  do  other  peoples  is  that  their  con- 
stitutions and  temperaments  require  no  excitant,  but  it  is  still 
more  broadly  true  that  Italians,  Northern  and  Southern,  unless 
already  demoralized,  drink  less  than  other  peoples  for  the  reason 
that  indulgence  in  the  habit  nibbles  away  their  potential  savings. 
In  Italy  sobriety  is  often  a necessary  of  existence;  in  the  coun- 
tries of  immigration  it  is  only  little  less  than  that.2 

Everywhere  the  incessant  beaver-like  industry  of  the  Italian 
has  been  remarked.  He  works  much  more  and  much  harder  than 
many  other  immigrants.  He  is  up  and  about  early  in  the  day,  and 
nightfall  does  not  seal  his  labors.  Under  his  touch  the  Argentine 
prairie  or  the  New  York  abandoned  farm  blooms.  The  fruit 
vendor  or  small  merchant  of  California  or  Peru  presently  builds 
himself  a substantial  shop. 

Yet  the  tale  is  not  ever  so.  As  an  employee  the  Italian  has  often 
been  described  as  lazy,  shirking,  tricky,  a time  server;  the  fore- 
man who  watches  over  him  has  no  perfunctory  task.  He  does 
indeed  work  hard  and  apparently  with  great  powers  of  endurance, 
but  he  does  not  work  willingly.  In  truth,  what  he  loves  is  not 
labor  as  labor,  for  he  is  but  human;  he  loves,  first  of  all,  and 
eagerly,  accumulation.  Effort  which  does  not  make  for  accumu- 
lation is  half-hearted,  or  performed  without  zeal.  Sometimes  men 

1 Report  on  Strike,  etc.  (Senate  document,  cit.),  p.  182. 

2 A half  century  ago  Florenzano  wrote  (p.  330) : “ The  Italian  is  patient,  resigned, 
sober,  economical  — qualities  that  stand  forth  as  well  about  the  ice  of  the  Alps  as 
at  the  base  of  the  volcanoes.”  Amid  the  great  diversity  of  historical  antecedent, 
such  are  really  the  common  qualities. 


424  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

have  observed  in  him  a characteristic  docility  or  amenability  to 
their  wishes,  and  employers  have  made  capital  of  the  quality. 
Partly  it  is  to  be  explained  by  the  century-long  domination  of 
church  and  foreign  prince  in  Italy,  or  of  feudal  lord.  Partly  it  is 
the  effect  of  an  overpowering  and  unyielding  environment,  both 
natural  and  social;  the  patience  which  knows  no  alternative,  re- 
sembling the  resignation  of  the  beast  of  burden.  But  chiefly,  I 
believe,  it  is  to  be  explained,  much  more  directly,  by  the  emi- 
grant’s reluctance  to  imperil  the  job  that  yields  savings,  his 
recognition  that  for  him  acquisition  is  everything.  He  asks  few 
favors.  Lacking  physical  strength,  he  must  get  his  price  by  long 
hours  of  hard,  monotonous  toil. 

It  is  possible  to  follow  out  numerous  striking  manifestations  of 
the  hunger  for  savings.  Time  and  again,  at  the  point  of  departure 
for  America,  emigrants  have  shown  themselves  more  eager  to  get 
there  cheaply  than  to  acquire  a clear  notion  whither  they  would 
turn  after  arrival.1  They  have  moved  into  houses  so  congested 
and  unsanitary  that  only  a miracle  might  avert  costly  conse- 
quences to  health  and  morals.  They  have,  in  all  the  major  coun- 
tries of  their  destination,  formed  the  practice  of  taking  boarders, 
with  its  many  deplorable  results,  a thing  they  had  never  done  in 
Italy.  When  beauty  and  utility  have  come  into  conflict,  they 
have  sacrificed  beauty:  witness  their  cutting  down  the  shade 
trees  at  Vineland,  New  Jersey,  the  general  absence  of  lawns  and 
flowers  and  any  aspect  of  homelikeness  both  in  their  North  and 
their  South  American  farms.2  Self-denying  or  negligent  of  dress 
as  of  lodging,  they  have  incurred  the  dislike  of  people  about  them : 
of  the  workmen,  because  they  seem  content  with  a low  wage,  of 
shopkeepers  because  they  avoid  trade.  And  as  they  sacrifice 
comfort  and  beauty  so  also  they  are  jealous  of  learning.  For 
themselves  and  for  their  children  — even  as  was  their  way  in 

1 Cf.,  e.g.,  De  Michelis,  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1907,  No.  10,  p.  16. 

2 See  the  reports  on  Immigrants  in  Agriculture  of  the  United  States  Immigration 
Commission.  De  Amicis,  observing  the  Italians  in  Santa  Fe  province,  wrote  (In 
America,  p.  99) : “ While  the  houses  of  the  German  and  English  colonists,  even  of 
those  less  well  off,  are  whitewashed  and  adorned  in  some  fashion  inside  as  well  as 
out,  those  of  the  Italian  colonists  have  coarse  exteriors  and  interiors  and  are  in 
every  non-essential  thing  neglected.” 


THE  EMIGRANTS  — MOTIVE  AND  TRAIT 


425 


Italy  — they  desire  only  that  minimum  which  will  promote  their 
earning.  Their  children  must  not  go  to  school  for  a day  longer 
than  the  law  requires,  and  if  a false  word  can  affirm  that  a child’s 
years  excuse  him,  that  word  will  often  be  spoken.  It  is  scarcely 
irrelevant  to  add  that  a money  motive  has  prompted  a char- 
acteristically large  fraction  of  Italian  crimes,  most  of  those,  for 
example,  that  are  associated  with  the  Black  Hand. 

In  a powerful  tale  of  Tolstoi’s,  Pakhom  the  peasant,  offered  as 
much  land  as  he  could  encircle  by  walking  in  a day,  strained  every 
fiber  to  the  utmost  and  encompassed  a great  tract,  but  as  the 
night  descended  upon  his  completed  journey,  fell  dead.  The 
passion  to  save  may  be,  philosophically  speaking,  the  Will  to 
Live,  but  like  every  other  passion,  it  is  often  blind.  On  the  Ital- 
ian immigrant’s  farm,  visitors  have  remarked  the  gaunt  and  over- 
worked horses.  In  thousands  upon  thousands  of  Italian  homes, 
the  women  and  children  have  borne  the  marks  of  a drained  vital- 
ity, a spent  beauty.  The  men  themselves  have  been  reported  to 
decline  prematurely,  their  famed  “ endurance  ” being  often  but 
a shortsighted  or  unescapable  expenditure  of  the  reserved 
strength  of  youth.  The  physical  body,  its  plasticity  departed 
even  before  the  moment  of  emigration,  has  been  asked  to  make  a 
difficult  adaptation  to  novel  requirements,  and  it  breaks  under 
the  strain.  Pakhom  perhaps  does  not  fall  at  the  day’s  end;  but 
he  bows  his  head  ever  a little  more  as  the  days  pass. 

A character  so  bent  upon  saving  as  the  Italian  cannot  fail  to 
develop  strongly  a practical  side,  or  to  accentuate  any  previously 
existing  tendency  of  the  sort.  The  Italian  is  indeed  a pruden- 
tialist.  Ideas  do  not  fascinate  him.  He  reflects,  and  evolves 
ideas,  but  all  cogitation  which  does  not  quickly  and  surely  bring 
the  wished-for  gain,  generally  a personal  gain,  he  terminates  and 
abandons.  A realist,  cold  and  calculating,  he  submits  every  idea 
to  an  acid  test  of  fact.1  He  often  speculates,  we  have  seen,  when 

1 “ The  Italian  who  occupies  himself  with  things  which  do  not  directly  touch 
him  is  an  Italian  who  has  yet  to  be  bom  ” (A.  Pelligrini,  cited  by  De  Boccard,  p.  5). 
The  view  is  of  course  extreme,  but  in  its  tenor  otherwise  just.  Compare  the  em- 
phatically objective  character  of  Italian  philosophy,  the  absence  of  sustained  re- 
flection in  Italian  music,  indeed  the  relatively  meager  development  of  any  but 
dramatic  music. 


426  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

he  decides  to  emigrate.  But  his  is  most  commonly  a speculation 
that  takes  place  under  provocation;  abroad  he  avoids  hazards 
where  he  can,  economic  as  well  as  physical,  and  seeks  independ- 
ence through  saving  daily  a fraction  of  his  wage.  He  is  not  an 
adventurer.  Though  he  often  finds  himself  in  a place  where  work 
is  not  to  be  had,  he  never  goes  to  a place  unless  he  has  been  led  to 
believe  that  work  will  offer  itself.  He  may  smother  his  personal 
inclinations  if  thereby  he  can  live  more  cheaply  and  save  more; 
but  he  is  less  willing  than  many  other  workers  are  to  incur  risks 
likely  to  imperil  his  chance  of  savings;  in  fact  he  has  sometimes 
been  said  to  feign  sickness  in  order  not  to  have  to  work  in  bad 
weather,  reporting  himself  well  again  when  rubber  boots  or  other 
protection  had  been  provided.  Partly  it  is  the  Italian’s  sense  of 
the  practical  and  the  expedient  which  determines  his  attitude, 
already  discussed,  toward  strikes.  He  is  an  adherent  of  few  causes, 
of  those  only  in  which  his  interest  is  visibly  involved,  and  he  has 
little  wish  to  make  converts.  His  enthusiasm,  though  it  may 
attain  a high  pitch,  quickly  again  subsides.  He  has  taken  to 
heart  the  lesson  of  deception  and  intrigue  at  home  and  is  suspi- 
cious of  those  who  would  make  advances  to  interest  or  help  him. 
All  alliances,  he  fears,  tend  to  become  entangling.  The  same  dis- 
trust of  others  leads  him  to  preserve  silence  at  many  moments 
when  persons  less  prudentially  constituted  would  freely  uncover 
their  thoughts. 

The  keenness  of  the  Italian’s  desire  to  earn  and  to  save,  over- 
riding so  much  else  that  the  world  deems  wholesome,  cannot  be 
understood  without  reference  to  his  ulterior  philosophy  of  life, 
and  this  in  turn  cannot  be  understood  without  inquiry  into  his 
relation  to  the  land  of  his  birth.  Of  patriotism  as  a Frenchman, 
for  example,  knows  it,  a proud  devotion  to  the  traditions  and 
ideals  of  his  nation,  he  has  little.  La  terza  Italia  is  of  recent  birth. 
What  is  magnificent  in  an  earlier  age  is  unknown  to  the  lower 
classes,  remote,  or  thought  of  as  not  representative;  or  it  is  simply 
blended  in  the  much  acuter  memories  of  secular,  even  millenary, 
alien  conquest  and  oppression.  Below  Rome  especially,  there  is  a 
history  of  governments,  but  not  a political  history  of  the  people. 


THE  EMIGRANTS  — MOTIVE  AND  TRAIT 


427 


The  State  has  meant  a hated  rule,  and  distrust,  even  into  the  era 
of  better  governmental  intentions,  has  been  its  sure  reward.1  The 
distrust  becomes  one  of  governments  as  such  and  easily  is  trans- 
ferred to  the  country  of  immigration.  It  is  certainly  one  factor, 
and  a strong  one,  in  making  for  that  susceptibility  to  subversive 
propaganda  which  sundry  chapters  of  this  book  have  recorded. 

Abroad  the  Italian’s  sentiment  of  patriotism,  such  as  it  is,  may 
be  reanimated.  Thrown  among  men  of  other  nationalities,  put 
upon  the  defensive,  the  critic  may  find  in  himself  a pride  like  that 
which  other  men  show,  and  he  may  regard  his  own  countrymen  in 
a new  light.  I recall  sitting  of  an  afternoon  in  a popular  Italian 
theater  in  Boston  during  the  first  year  of  the  European  war, 
when  at  intervals,  in  the  progress  of  a song,  the  flags  of  the  nations 
were  displayed  on  a screen,  Belgian,  British,  Russian,  and  the 
rest.  Each  won  its  round  of  applause,  which  was  heightened 
when  the  Stars  and  Stripes  appeared,  but  was  redoubled  and 
prolonged  when  finally  the  Italian  banner  flashed  forth.  Beyond 
doubt,  I reflected,  the  response  was  greater,  under  this  contrast, 
than  when  on  other  occasions  the  Italian  flag  alone  was  presented. 
The  change  of  which  this  episode  was  symptomatic  is  so  far 
spontaneous  or  unconscious.  Under  leadership  and  stimulus  it 
further  happens  that  a national  holiday  like  the  Venti  Settembre 
is  honored  in  a celebration,  and  support  has  upon  occasion  been 
found  in  America  for  erecting  in  public  places  statues  of  those 
household  gods — as  they  have  become  to  many  — Garibaldi  and 
Mazzini.  Patriotism  again  certainly  played  a part  in  the  return 
to  Italy  from  European  countries  and  America  of  Italians  who 
planned  to  fight  in  the  Libyan  and  European  wars.  On  the  other 
hand  such  patriotic  organizations  as  other  peoples  maintain  in 

1 One  striking  instance  of  such  distrust,  pertinent  to  our  study,  was  given  to  the 
Senate,  June  30,  1909,  by  Sig.  Reynaudi,  Commissioner-General  of  Emigration  (see 
Boll.  Emig.,  1909,  No.  12,  p.  112).  Some  sixty  workmen,  he  said,  clandestinely 
enrolled  at  Naples  to  go  to  Brazil,  had  been  warned  by  the  emigration  officials  that 
they  would  be  defrauded.  In  vain.  Again  at  Genoa  the  officials  declared  that  the 
Brazilian  wage  would  be  insufficient,  the  work  hard,  the  climate  bad.  Yet  they 
departed.  At  Lisbon  the  officials  offered  to  pay  their  way  back  if  they  would  re- 
turn. One  accepted.  Scarcely  had  the  rest  reached  their  destination  when  the 
consul  cabled  for  permission  to  repatriate  them,  which  was  given,  involving  an 
expenditure  of  10,000  lire. 


428  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

foreign  lands  have  been  few  or  weak  among  Italians,  lacking  sus- 
tained strength,  continuance  of  effort.  Aptly  was  it  observed  by 
Corradini  that  only  in  Italia  Irredenta  had  his  compatriots  pre- 
sented a firm  patriotic  front,1  and  there,  it  might  be  added,  the 
elements  most  outspoken  had  been,  not  the  newcomers,  but 
those  longest  established. 

And  here  a paradox.  Far  from  being  an  eager  patriot  in  the 
land  of  his  birth,  seeking  his  Italy  in  whatever  country  will  give 
him  his  bread,  not  fervid  in  his  patriotism  abroad,  the  Italian, 
like  no  other  emigrant,  aspires  to  return  to  his  home.  This  hope 
he  bears  in  his  heart  when  he  departs,  as  opinion  universally 
witnesses;  he  keeps  it  warm  and  pulsating  in  foreign  lands,  where 
it  contributes  tellingly  to  that  aloofness  from  others  or  clannish- 
ness which  his  neighbors  there  have  noted  in  him;  and  as  our 
formal  statistical  study  has  suggested,  it  is  potent  in  directing 
him  back  to  his  Italy.  It  carries  him  thither  indeed  from  all 
countries,  whether  their  governments  be  liberal  or  illiberal,  and 
it  by  no  means  always  awaits  the  oncoming  of  depression  in 
business. 

“ He  abandons  the  niggardly  soil  as  the  swallow  forsakes  the 
inclement  skies;  he  returns  to  his  familiar  and  cherished  hut  as 
the  bird  repairs  to  its  old  nest.”  2 The  Italian,  when  he  emigrates; 
has  in  a notable  sense  already  attained  his  growth,  is  a fully 
fashioned  character.  His  affections  are  warm  and  deep,  attaching 
I him  to  his  family  and  the  scenes  of  his  childhood.  When  he  breaks 
from  these  tugging  intimacies  it  is  conditionally,  not  absolutely, 
he  must  live  in  them  again,  and  he  departs  only  that  he  may 
live  in  them  more  richly  than  before.  Life  abroad  is  a strange  and 
difficult  thing  to  the  unsheltered  Italian,  who  tolerates  it  only  for 
the  promise  of  the  return  to  Italy.  Where  contrasts  glare  upon 
him  from  every  angle,  a homesickness  appears  and  the  animus 
redeundi  becomes  restless  and  impatient.  Yet  he  stays  and 
sacrifices,  rounds  out  his  purgation,  putting  aside  as  many  lire  as 
he  may  to  realize  his  master  passion,  the  assurance  of  a house  and 
land  and  comfort  for  his  family  in  his  native  paese.  At  bottom, 

1 II  volere  d’ltalia,  p.  95. 

2 E.  Morpurgo  in  Inch.  Agr.  (1882),  iv',  p.  95. 


THE  EMIGRANTS  — MOTIVE  AND  TRAIT 


429 


and  quintessentially,  this  is  the  meaning  of  his  parsimony  and 
saving  in  other  lands,  this  defines  his  prime  and  paramount  mo- 
tive in  settling  in  them,  this  is  his  idealism.1 

One  journey  abroad  may  not  suffice  to  make  the  dream  real. 
Some  emigrants  pass  many  times  between  Europe  and  America. 
When  their  migration  is  periodic  — the  true  “ bird  of  passage  ” 
sort  — they  doubtless  are  carrying  out  a plan.  But  it  must  hap- 
pen very  often,  especially  when  periodicity  is  absent,  that  their 
lives  are  an  incessant  contest,  wholly  unplanned,  between  the 
desire  to  live  at  home  and  the  desire  to  earn  abroad.  They  return 
with  money  — it  is  not  enough.  Forth  again,  therefore,  and 
back  again.  But  their  developing  tastes  have  surpassed  their 
savings.  Once  more  the  course  is  repeated;  but  now  perhaps 
adversity  strikes,  and  renovation  of  fortune  must  begin  anew. 

He  who  embarks  upon  so  great  an  adventure  knows  not 
whither  it  may  lead  him.  Be  his  heart  never  so  steadfast  at  part- 
ing, yet  he  must  reckon  with  the  wide  world’s  wooing.  As  abroad 
there  is  a strife  between  the  desire  to  continue  to  earn  and  that  to 
return  to  Italy,  so  there  arises  a contest  between  the  old  home  and 
the  new  — the  one  calling,  the  other  seducing.  How  deeply  the 
trouble  stirs  must  vary  much  from  individual  to  individual.  It 
may  pass  quickly,  a thing  of  a day,  because  excess  of  pain  ac- 
companies the  memory  of  the  old  home,  or  because  bitterness  and 
disillusionment  are  the  main  gift  of  the  new,  or  again  because 
fullness  of  success  in  the  new  land  may  convert  sentiments  and 
sympathies  to  a fresh  allegiance.  Instances  of  such  faring  are 
easily  verified,  and  endless  nuances  of  them  as  well.  Discontented 
in  America,  the  emigrant  may  go  back  to  Italy  only  to  find  it  less 
beautiful  than  it  appeared  in  the  gleaming  delineation  of  his 

1 Italians  much  occupied  with  their  dream  are  less  successful  abroad  than  others- 
See,  e.g.,  Carpi,  ii,  p.  133,  and  G.  Ceppi,  p.  43.  Ceppi  has  written:  “ These  vacilla- 
tions . . . enormously  hurt  the  emigrants,  impeding  their  activity  and  their  ini- 
tiative, holding  them  always  in  disquiet  and  uncertainty.  Those  who  from  the 
first  reckon  with  what  is  best  and  decide  to  regard  the  Argentine  Republic  as  the 
field  in  which  to  deploy  all  their  aptitudes  win  an  immense  advantage  over  those 
who  waver  and  who  think  only  of  returning.”  They  are  led,  he  adds,  to  exhaust 
their  lands. 


430 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


memory  (one  recalls  the  blind  couple  in  Synge’s  play  whose  re- 
stored vision  shatters  their  happiness)  and  the  experience  may 
send  him  definitively  forth.1  Or  he  may  be  treated  in  Italy  as  a 
parvenu  by  bourgeoisie  and  aristocracy  alike  — “ What  was  he 
before  he  became  rich  ? ” they  may  unpleasantly  ask,  and  again 
he  must  sally  forth.2  Gradually  the  country  of  secondary  al- 
legiance — or  of  none  whatever  — may  supplant  its  rival  and 
become  primary;  and  this  even  when  naturalization  is  neither 
acquired  nor  sought.  Indeed  in  nearly  all  countries  the  readiness 
of  the  Italian  actually  to  change  his  citizenship,  unless  for  busi- 
ness reasons,  has  emerged  tardily  or  not  at  all.  When  children 
have  been  born  abroad,  they  become  the  most  powerful  of  all 
forces  to  sever  the  tie  with  Italy.3  For  the  dream  of  the  return  to 
Italy  has  rested  largely  on  the  love  of  family  and  home;  and  the 
new  births,  especially  when  the  children  have  so  far  grown  up  as  to 
recognize  a tie  of  their  own,  create  a new  home.  Very  rarely  do 
these  foreign-bred  children  seek  out  Italian  citizenship.  And  if, 
on  the  contrary,  as  happens  abundantly  in  Argentina  and  the 
United  States,  the  children  become  infused  with  the  demonstra- 
tive patriotism  of  the  new  nation,  then  the  parents  too  may  come 
to  regard  Italy  as  a country  without  a morrow,  and  America  as 
the  country  of  strides  and  grandeur.  So  at  the  last  the  bright 
colors  of  the  dream  may  fade  and  the  dream  itself  be  forgot. 

The  connection  subsisting  between  the  Italian’s  attachment 
to  the  scenes  of  his  early  life  and  his  hunger  for  savings  while 
abroad  is  now  sufficiently  clear.  But  the  precise  form  which  his 
patriotism  assumes  in  other  lands  has  still  to  be  determined.  Di- 
rectly or  indirectly,  for  instance,  through  that  national  amalga- 
mation which  comes  with  the  Italian  method  of  military  training, 
he  has  learned  to  respond  to  the  name  of  Italy,  and  he  kindles  to 
the  glory  of  Garibaldi  and  the  Risorgimento  satellites.  But  his 
nationalism  is  still  a veneer,  thick  and  substantial  often,  but  rarely 

1 Cf.  de  Amicis,  In  America,  pp.  111-115. 

2 Cf.  Troisi,  L' Argentina  agricola,  etc.,  p.  107. 

3 E.g.,  “ To  the  question  ‘ Shall  you  return  to  Italy  ? ’ ‘ God  willing,  but  how 
can  I ? How  should  I live  there  ? And  all  my  children  bom  here  ? ’ — so  they  all 
replied.”  Venerosi  Pesciolini,  Colonie  italiane  nel  Brasile  Ateridionale,  p.  278. 


THE  EMIGRANTS  — MOTIVE  AND  TRAIT  43  I 

if  ever  the  deepest  aspect  of  his  social  experience  (perhaps  the  War 
of  Wars  will  make  it  otherwise).1 

A great  nation  tends  to  have  a great  capital,  a pulsating  heart. 
So  France  has  Paris,  and  England,  London.  But  in  Italy  life 
centers  as  surely  in  Naples  or  Milan  or  Palermo  as  in  Rome.  The 
powerful  traditions  are  mainly  regional  and  they  include  even  the 
memory  of  passionate  regional  hostilities,  now  doubtless  attenu- 
ated but  still  deserving  the  name  of  animosities.2  Each  region 
has  its  dialect,  and  even  its  dialects  within  a dialect,  all  difficult 
for  the  unaccustomed  to  understand.3  Communication  has  till 
recently  been  slow,  and  in  many  places  still  is;  not  many  decades 
have  passed  since  eight  days  were  required  to  go  from  the  Valtel- 
lina  to  Milan.  Marriage  outside  the  paese  is  rare.  Deeper  trust 
is  lodged  in  a fellow  townsman  than  in  the  general  government. 

In  foreign  countries  this  regionalism  persists.  Observers  have 
reported  that  they  do  not  find  Italians  but  rather  Venetians, 
Calabrians,  and  so  forth.4  Even  the  smaller  unit,  the  village, 
clings  to  its  identity.  In  Briey,  in  New  York,  in  Buenos  Aires, 
something  like  a street-by-street  separation  of  the  immigrants 
according  to  origin  has  been  recognizable.  Partly  this  cohesion 

1 Bonardelli  (Lo  slato  di  S.  Paolo,  etc.,  p.  120)  has  succinctly  expressed  the  nature 
of  Italian  patriotic  sentiment  abroad:  “For  the  mass  of  them,  ignorant  and  illit- 
erate, the  idea  of  country  reduces  itself  to  the  indelible  recollections  of  youth,  of 
family,  of  home,  the  confused  tales  of  the  glorious  deeds  of  our  history,  of  our  illus- 
trious men;  excellent  sentiments  which  yet  do  not  rise  to  a high  idealism  of 
country.” 

2 Le  Bon  is  a severe  critic,  but  if  his  words  apply  somewhat  to  the  general  popu- 
lation they  apply  d fortiori  to  that  lower  tier  which  emigrates,  a tier  least  versed 
in  the  history  of  the  third  Italy.  He  says:  “ A country  like  Italy  may  suddenly 
succeed,  through  exceptional  circumstances,  in  forming  a single  state,  but  it  would 
be  an  error  to  believe  that  it  thereby,  at  one  and  the  same  stroke,  acquires  a national 
soul.  I observe  clearly  in  Italy,  Piedmontese,  Sicilians,  Venetians,  Romans,  etc., 

I do  not  yet  see  Italians.”  Les  lois  psychologiques  de  V evolution  des  peuples  (8th 
ed.,  Paris,  1907),  p.  16. 

3 The  story  is  told  of  an  Italian  consul  who,  disembarking  at  Buenos  Aires,  found 
himself  among  workmen  noisily  speaking  a language  strange  to  him.  Inquiring  of 
their  nationality,  he  was  told  that  they  were  Italians.  See  Ghinassi,  “ Per  le 
nostre  colonie,”  L’ltalia  Coloniale,  February,  1902,  p.  68. 

* E.g.,  see  di  Palma-Castiglione,  in  Boll.  Emig.,  19x5,  No.  6,  p.  36  and  Bertarelli, 
Brasile  Meridionale,  p.  81. 


432 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


rests  upon  a timidity  felt  in  the  presence  of  strangers,  partly  it  is  a 
variant  of  this,  like  the  friendliness  noticeable  among  tourists  of 
a single  origin  who  meet  in  a European  pension.  But  most  of  all 
it  is  a thing  so  characteristically  Italian  that  it  is  best  denoted  by 
the  Italian  name  campanilismo : a loyalty  to  that  which  falls 
within  the  range  of  the  village  bell  tower.  This  it  is  which  spurs 
the  immigrant  to  entrust  his  savings  to  his  fellow  townsman, 
rather  than  to  a chartered  but  foreign  bank,  or  to  marry  an  immi- 
grant girl  deriving  from  his  own  neighborhood,  or  to  write  home 
asking  that  a girl  from  his  village  be  chosen  to  traverse  the  seas  to 
be  his  bride.1  But  with  this  loyalty  also  goes  marked  hostility  — 
at  the  least,  indifference  — to  the  immigrants  from  other  parts  of 
Italy.  While  conflicts  of  a sanguinary  nature  are  one  result  of  the 
curious  situation  so  produced,  a larger  consequence  is  a patent 
disunity  of  the  Italian  population  as  such,  mute  evidence  of  the 
weakness  of  nationalist  sentiment.  Most  clearly  of  all,  the  dis- 
unity shows  in  the  schisms  and  dissensions  among  Italian  socie- 
ties. When  Enrico  Ferri  was  called  upon,  as  a distinguished  guest, 
to  speak  at  a celebration  of  the  Venti  Settembre  at  Rosario, 
Santa  Fe,  he  declared  to  his  hearers  that  in  maintaining  their 
organizations  upon  a regional  basis  they  were  inharmonious  with 
the  spirit  of  the  day  they  were  honoring,  for  its  exclusive  signifi- 
cance was  the  oneness  of  the  Italian  nation.2  As  much  as  any- 
thing else,  the  regionalist  temper  has  further  been  responsible  for 
the  general  limitation  of  the  Italians’  societies  to  those  forms 
which  serve  the  more  urgent  needs  of  life. 

1 Endogamy  is  perhaps  still  commoner  when  the  emigration  is  merely  over- 
land. Of  the  girls  of  Cuneo,  immigrated  into  France,  it  is  written  (Baldioli-Chio- 
rando,  p.  857):  “ They  do  not  marry  the  French,  few  marry  Italians  who  are  not 
from  the  province  of  Cuneo,  and  at  the  most  they  marry  other  Piedmontese;  even 
their  love-making  is  usually  in  the  same  circle,  and  so  they  end  by  marrying  men 
of  their  region  almost  as  if  they  had  stayed  at  home.” 

2 See  his  address  to  Parliament  June  22, 1909,  reported  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1909,  No. 
1 2,  p.  7.  On  the  societies  themselves  the  testimony  of  a widely  travelled  Italian 
is  worth  adducing:  “In  my  long  experience  I have  found  very  few  Italian  socie- 
ties whose  corporate  existence  has  not  been  constantly  corroded  and  menaced  by 
the  same  evils,  in  every  country,  in  every  climate,  in  every  environment:  excessive 
individualism,  excessive  decentralization,  the  separatist  and  regionalist  spirit.” 
Brenna,  L’emigrazione  italiana,  p.  160. 


THE  EMIGRANTS  — MOTIVE  AND  TRAIT 


433 


Why  it  is  that  Italian  societies  are  more  commonly  described  as 
innumerable  than  as  large  or  strong  cannot  however  be  fully 
understood  by  reference  only  to  the  workings  of  regionalism. 
Another  trait  is  in  play,  one  which  determines  a great  deal  in  the 
behavior  of  the  emigrants.  Individualism,  since  its  presence  in  a 
people  is  usually  accounted  a virtue,  has  been  claimed  — has  it 
not  ? — for  nearly  every  people,  and  so  for  the  Italian.  In  this 
last  association  it  has  attained  to  such  striking  and  characteristic 
manifestations  that  it  may  be  said  to  be  almost  pervasive  of  the 
national  character. 

Individualism  presumes  the  State  to  be  a more  or  less  artificial 
society.  It  dislikes  most  forms  of  collective  action.  It  resents 
coercion  and  discipline.  One  form  of  it  thrives  readily  in  those 
countries  in  which  governments  have  succeeded  each  other,  or  in 
which  governments  have  been  weak,  non-representative,  and 
through  their  errors  and  vices  mistrusted.  So  it  has  thriven  in 
most  of  Italy.  Such  an  individualism  declines  when  governments 
tend  to  become  benevolent  and  efficient.  So  it  has  declined  in 
most  of  Italy,  but  only  a little,  for  its  roots  rim  deep,  are  tenacious, 
and  give  up  their  hold  only  after  long  coaxing.  Nowhere  has  it 
such  strength  as  in  South  Italy.  The  endless  denial  of  State  jus- 
tice in  Sicily,  even  through  the  first  years  of  United  Italy,  has 
elevated  into  a system  the  private  vendetta.  The  intense  affec- 
tion of  the  Sicilian  for  his  family,  coupled  with  the  conception 
that  each  man  must  take  vengeance  into  his  own  hands,  privately, 
not  even  telling  the  authorities  of  his  wrong,  has  fostered  a spirit 
of  self-reliance  which  is  elsewhere  not  common.  It  is  a somewhat 
ferocious  self-reliance,  resembling  in  degree  but  not  at  all  in  kind 
that  of  the  American  frontiersman  of  a day  now  gone  by,  who 
battled  singly,  not  with  the  State,  but  with  Nature.  Success  in 
the  vendetta  may  require  that  the  idea  of  revenge  be  nursed  for 
years,  by  an  implacable  memory,  pending  the  right  moment  to 
strike.  Fitness  to  steer  clear  of  trouble  may  depend  upon  a cer- 
tain promptness  to  take  umbrage.1  Hence  — partly  to  be  so 
explained  at  least  • — that  sensitiveness  which  every  one  who  has 

1 See  Lorenzoni’s  fine  analysis  of  a complex  of  Sicilian  qualities  in  Inch.  Pari., 
vi',  pp.  676-680. 


434 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


known  Italians  has  remarked;  that  sudden  coming  of  a moment 
when  something  must  be  pardoned  or  reconstrued.  For  what  has 
been  said  here  especially  of  Sicily  is  in  varying  degree  represen- 
tative of  many  parts  of  Italy. 

The  same  temper  which,  in  the  conduct  of  his  affairs  in  Italy, 
keeps  the  Italian  from  depending  upon  the  State  may  lead  him  to 
seek  the  rehabilitation  of  his  career  by  his  own  instrumentality  in 
other  lands.  No  other  emigration  has  embraced  so  large  a repre- 
sentation of  the  itinerant  types,  like  the  hawkers  and  the  street 
minstrels;  among  Irish  emigrants,  by  way  of  extreme  contrast, 
they  have  been  all  but  absent.  These  are  perhaps  a special 
incarnation  of  the  individualist  impulse  for  self -redemption. 
Whatever  his  type,  however,  the  Italian  goes  forth  to  achieve  his 
independence,  and  generally  by  saving.  He  must  be  a sovereign. 
Bit  by  bit,  from  his  low,  irregular  wages,  he  lays  the  foundations  of 
his  freedom  — how  romantic,  seen  from  a complacent  angle,  is 
the  million  times  repeated  project!  He  may  collapse  in  his  en- 
deavor but,  outside  the  pathological  realm  of  pauperism,  he  is  slow 
to  beg.  Yet  he  does  beg  if  so  he  may,  without  obligation,  improve 
his  economic  status.  What  he  deeply  detests  is  being  in  another’s 
debt,  for  that  imposes  a limit  upon  his  cherished  independence.1 
A debt  to  make  emigration  possible  he  freely  incurs,  but  that  is  a 
step  toward  independence  and  he  seizes  an  early  opportunity  to 
repay.  The  individualism  of  the  South  Italian  is  not  of  the  kind 
which  makes  a good  pioneer  in  opening  up  a country  to  farming  — 
herein  the  comment  of  the  investigator  of  the  United  States  Immi- 
gration Commission  is  justified;  yet  something  even  of  that  in- 
dividualism has  been  shown  by  the  North  Italians  in  Argentina. 
Rather,  the  Italian’s  individualism  presupposes  a social  world. 
In  such  a one  he  will  struggle  to  rise  and  will  suffer  the  inevitable 
with  serenity.2  He  has  stoicism,  and  none  but  an  individualist 
becomes  a stoic. 

1 E.g.y  “ If  an  Italian  has  no  money  and  can  get  none,  he  will  not  call  a doctor, 
no  matter  how  ill  he  may  be.”  Mangano,  p.  127. 

2 Cf.  Riis’  remark:  “ Neither  poverty  nor  hard  knocks  has  power  to  discourage 
the  child  of  Italy.”  Children  of  the  Poor  (New  York,  1892),  p.  21.  Bertarelli  de- 
clares that  he  has  on  several  occasions  compared  the  Italians  on  shipboard,  during 


THE  EMIGRANTS  — MOTIVE  AND  TRAIT 


435 


It  is  safe  to  say  that  the  individualism  of  the  Italians  shows  in 
even  bolder  relief  abroad  than  in  Italy.  Partly  this  is  because  the 
act  of  emigration  itself  selects  the  more  enterprising  spirits,  partly 
it  is  because  experience  in  faring  for  themselves  accustoms  men 
to  self-dependence.  The  self-made  man  develops  a certain  egois- 
tic belief  that  the  man  of  quality  will  surely  rise  above  the  mass 
unaided;  and  he  is  therefore  none  too  solicitous  about  the  mass. 
Of  a true  civic  life,  it  can  surprise  no  one,  there  is  little  in  the  Ital- 
ian colonies.  There  are  too  many  shades  of  opinion,  too  many 
personalities  always  breaking  loose  from  one  allegiance,  setting 
up  little  kingdoms  of  their  own.  There  is  irreconcilable  fretting 
under  discipline  and  control.  Musical  as  few  other  peoples  have 
been,  the  Italians  have  never  developed  much  interest  in  choir 
singing.  It  is  only  the  readiness  to  pay  the  necessary  price  for  a 
job  that  makes  the  worker  seem  docile;  when  the  readiness  is 
imperfectly  maintained,  he  is  called  capricious;  in  the  sphere  of 
free  decision  he  is  anything  but  tractable.  The  difficulty  in  Italy 
of  holding  him  to  continuous  allegiance  in  the  “ leagues  of  resist- 
ance ” (their  best  Southern  strength  is  in  Apulia,  but  there  too  it 
succumbs  to  individualist  rivalry)  is  paralleled  by  the  feebleness 
abroad  of  his  labor-union  development.  The  endless  splits  of  the 
Italian  political  parties,  again,  are  paralleled  by  the  division  and 
multiplication  abroad  of  the  mutual  aid  societies,  associations  for 
the  protection  of  arriving  immigrants  and  the  like,  all  resulting  in 
a pulverization  of  competence. 

In  close  association  with  the  Italian’s  individualism  is  a certain 
love  of  show.  It  is  bound  up  also  with  that  high  regard  for  aes- 
thetic effect  upon  which  no  essay  on  Italian  emigration  need  dilate. 
What  spectators  at  a play  universally  tend  to  do,  namely,  to 

storms,  in  seasickness,  etc.,  with  Spanish,  Portuguese,  Arabs,  and  Poles  and  noted 
their  superior  serenity  and  strength  (op.  cit.,  p.  238;  cf.  p.  239). 

In  de  Amiris’  masterpiece,  Cuore,  which  hundreds  of  thousands,  perhaps  mil- 
lions, of  Italian  children  have  read,  is  a story,  “ Dagli  Apennini  alle  Ande,”  con- 
cerned, idealistically,  with  this  same  spirit.  Its  first  sentence  shows  its  drift : “ Many 
years  ago  a Genoese  boy  of  thirteen  years,  son  of  a workman,  went  from  Genoa  to 
America,  alone,  to  seek  his  mother.”  And  the  peregrination  it  tells  of  only  ends  in 
Tucuman. 


436  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

identify  themselves  with  the  actors,  the  Italian  inclines  to  do 
with  special  urgency.  His  sensitive  personality  merges  itself  in 
the  actor’s,  and  now  weeps  now  exults  as  the  example  bids.  His 
approval  or  disapproval  partakes  almost  of  vehemence;  to  him, 
how  the  actor  carries  his  part  is  no  negligible  matter.  That  he 
should  merely  sit  by,  content  to  gaze  and  listen  while  others  per- 
form, is  already  a concession;  what  he  will  do  if  he  can  is  to  act  in 
the  spectacle  himself  — compare  those  religious  representations 
and  pageants  which  make  of  an  entire  village  in  South  Italy  a 
stage.  It  is  in  harmony  with  the  impulse  here  under  scrutiny 
that,  as  some  one  has  said,  the  municipal  expenditures  in  Italy  are, 
to  an  unusual  extent,  munificent  rather  than  provident  and  every 
town  wants  a statue  to  some  valoroso  concittadino : for  so  one  may 
stand  forth  vicariously.  When  the  Italian  of  the  fruit  stand  in  a 
New  Hampshire  village  or  on  a New  York  by-street  exhibits  his 
wares  dressed  in  such  neatness  of  design  that  the  customer  almost 
hesitates  to  disturb  the  picture,  the  same  proud  individualism  — 
commendably  proud,  we  say  — is  in  play. 

Much  of  the  fife  of  the  Italians  in  their  foreign  settlements  is 
organized  about  this  trait.  Many  a mutual  aid  society  has  come 
into  existence  largely  because  of  the  chance  offered  for  pomp  and 
paraphernalia,  and  has  been  held  together  by  its  picnics,  excur- 
sions, and  parades.1  Through  the  narrow  streets  of  such  a colony 
a funeral  procession  may  take  its  way,  an  endless  succession  of 
carriages  smothered  in  flowers,  followed  by  an  endless  line  of  men 
marching  single  file,  plumed,  decorated,  in  uniform,  carrying 
gorgeous  banners  — is  it  all  for  the  deceased  or  the  living  ? 

Particularly  when  a man  has  won  his  independence,  become  a 
sovereign,  he  desires  that  others  should  respect  his  success.  The 
colonies  have  their  “ prominenti,”  men  who  are  avid  of  tribute. 
Sometimes  the  successful  return  to  Italy  and  when  they  buy  land 
it  may  be  in  part  to  gratify  a sort  of  vainglory.2  The  money 
which  they  send  home  for  religious  festivals  and  the  like  is  “partly 

1 A leading  Italian  newspaper  of  New  York  prominently  advertises  that  it  sup- 
plies societies  with  their  printed  stationery,  seventeen  different  items,  at  a price, 
for  minimum  quantities,  of  nearly  $50. 

2 Cf.  Rossi,  “ Vantaggi  e danni,”  p.  33. 


THE  EMIGRANTS  — MOTIVE  AND  TRAIT 


437 


sent  by  reason  of  true  devotion,  partly  for  pride  in  their  district 
and  partly  to  display  their  own  affluence.”  1 And  de  Amicis, 
from  his  vantage  point  on  board  an  emigrant  carrying  ship  bound 
for  Argentina,  has  remarked  how  those  who  have  been  in  America 
hold  forth  to  the  rest,  “ what  a burning  desire  they  feel  to  become 
known,  to  make  for  themselves  a pedestal  even  in  so  poor  a 
throng,  in  order  to  show  how  superior  they  are  to  the  wretched- 
ness to  which  they  are  reduced  and  by  which  they  are  sur- 
rounded.” 2 

In  our  study  of  the  causes  of  emigration  it  was  pointed  out  that 
in  many  things  the  Italian  has  the  mind  of  a child.  In  our  survey 
of  the  emigrants  abroad  we  have  repeatedly  had  to  note  a certain 
helplessness,  parent  of  innumerable  malad ventures.  And  in  the 
present  chapter  it  must  often  have  been  plain  that,  along  with 
the  qualities  particularly  under  discussion,  went  a certain  tenta- 
tiveness of  comprehension  or  shortness  of  vision,  without  whose 
aid  even  the  illustrations  given  could  not  wholly  be  explained. 
We  cannot  longer  forego  to  speak  explicitly  of  this  persistent 
tertium  quid. 

What  marks  off  the  mature  citizen  of  the  world  from  the  child  is 
a certain  fitness  for  dealing  with  the  world’s  revolving  facets,  with 
the  changing  demands,  contingencies,  and  conjunctures  it  pre- 
sents. This  capacity  is  the  result  of  the  activity  or  the  trans- 
formation of  original  powers  and  impulses,  the  special  result  often 
of  methodical  schooling,  such  as  our  educational  systems  afford, 
or  of  the  imitative  acquisition,  out  of  a rich  social  environment,  of 
its  heritage  of  manners  and  modes  of  behavior,  or  finally  of  the 
direct  experience  of  life  in  its  ampler  ranges.  Such  a fitness  the 
Italian  emigrant  lacks.  Various  are  the  origins  of  this  deficiency, 
and  numberless  the  points  at  which  it  is  revealed. 

Sometimes  what  is  impressive  is  a sheer  lowness  of  standards,  a 
state  of  contentment  with  those  modes  of  living  which  civilized 
people,  as  much  by  metaphor  as  by  knowledge,  surely,  call  primi- 
tive. “ Dirty  ” — the  Italians  are  “ dirty,”  personally  and  in 

1 Inch.  Pari.,  viii,  p.  58. 

2 On  Blue  Water  ( SulV  oceano,  tr.  by  J.  B.  Brown,  New  York,  1897),  p.  85. 


43§ 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


their  mode  of  living  — how  endlessly  the  charge  is  reiterated!  In 
the  old  days  there  were  no  baths  for  emigrants  aboard  ship.  De 
Amicis  complained  that  for  fifteen  hundred  people  in  the  steerage 
of  the  ship  that  carried  him  to  Argentina  there  was  not  one  bath.1 
By  the  Italian  law  of  1901,  two  must  be  provided  on  each  ship. 
Yet  in  1910,  when  Dr.  Madia  reported  upon  the  thirty-nine  voy- 
ages he  had  made  as  medical  inspector,  he  could  write,  “ The  wise 
foresight  of  the  law  and  the  best  intentions  of  the  government 
commissioners  find  a primary  obstacle  in  the  ignorance  of  this 
mass,  which  will  not  let  a blow  be  struck  at  its  venerated  century- 
old  traditions  of  dirt.”  2 The  greater  part  of  the  emigrants,  he 
further  declared,  not  only  make  no  renewal  of  linen  during  the 
long  voyage  but  even  pass  the  night  with  their  clothes  on.  What- 
ever the  changes  — seemingly  not  great  — which  the  emigrants 
abroad  undergo,  with  respect  to  habits  of  personal  cleanliness, 
the  direction  of  change  is  in  some  environments  at  least  not 
upward.3 

The  low  intellectual  development,  which  has  so  frequently  had 
for  a concomitant  neglect  of  person,  has  been  accountable  not 
only  for  many  of  the  most  grievous  blunders  of  the  Italians  in 
foreign  lands  but  also  for  one  element  in  their  success:  a stolid 
indifference  to  circumstance.  To  be  a helot  is  assuredly  not  to 
have  an  enviable  place.  But  if  one  must  be  a helot  one  insures 
best  against  discomfort  by  acknowledging  few  needs,  making  few 
demands,  discriminating  and  refining  little  in  one’s  emotional 

1 On  Blue  Water,  p.  180. 

2 E.  Madia,  “ Relazione  su  trentanove  viaggi  in  servizio  di  emigrazione,”  Boll. 
Emig.,  1910,  No.  15,  p.  42.  He  adds  (p.  43)  that  if  at  least  the  children  were  to  be 
given  a bath,  the  royal  commissioner  had  personally  to  see  to  it.  That  the  aversion 
of  emigrants  to  bathing  amounts  to  a kind  of  phobia  was  maintained  by  Dr.  T. 
Rosati,  “ II  servizio  igienico-sanitario  nell’  emigrazione  transoceanica  per  l’anno 
1908,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1909,  No.  16,  p.  55.  In  his  report  for  the  following  year,  how- 
ever (Boll.  Emig.,  1910,  No.  16),  he  recorded  (p.  47)  a perceptible  increase  in 
the  readiness  to  bathe,  under  the  contagion  of  example. 

3 Cf.  S.  Coletti  (“  Lo  stato  di  S.  Paolo,”  etc.,  Emig.  e Col.,  1908,  p.  378):  “ The 
level  of  personal  cleanliness  of  our  colonists,  low  in  Italy,  sinks  by  several  degrees 
in  the  fazendas,  because  the  environment  is  rougher  than  at  home  and  because  the 
contadino  lacks  the  incentive  which  he  had  in  Italy  of  appearing  neat  at  least  on 
holidays,  taking  part  in  religious  exercises,  or  merely  stopping  for  gossip  in  the  -vil- 
lage square  — even  those  simple  social  forms  disappear  in  the  fazendas.” 


TEE  EMIGRANTS  — MOTIVE  AND  TRAIT 


439 


content.1  People  and  affairs  touch  one  not  closely,  for  a haze 
keeps  their  reality  low.  The  hard-handed  man  is  not  even  aware 
of  the  prick  from  which  the  soft-handed  man  recoils,  and  with  his 
physical  callousness  goes  a certain  mental  callousness;  melan- 
choly and  neuropathological  developments  are  far  less  common 
than  many  persons  have  supposed.  There  is  here  still  another 
partial  explanation  of  that  quality  of  “ endurance,”  universally 
noted,  which  has  been  discussed  above  from  another  angle. 

In  the  unschooled  character,  illiteracy  is  only  the  most  imme- 
diate of  disabilities;  it  signifies  not  so  much  the  absence  of  school- 
ing as  the  absence  of  even  a little  schooling.  The  Italian’s  deeper 
impulses  are  untransformed,  weakly  inhibited,  and  now  and  then 
stormily  break  forth.  The  passions  show  uncommon  strength, 
the  fervor  of  love  rises  to  a kind  of  fierceness.  Hate  is  implacable, 
vengeance  unswerving  from  its  path.  For  a score  of  years  the 
intended  victim  may  succeed  in  living  a normal  life,  augmenting 
his  income  and  comfort,  only  to  be  suddenly  shot  or  stabbed,  so 
mysteriously  that  the  police  will  listen  to  no  accounting  but  sui- 
cide. Both  the  intensity  of  the  emotion  and  the  directness  of 
revenge  are  more  familiar  to  primitive  than  to  civilized  societies. 
Jealousy  arises  and  prompts  to  many  a crime,  even  to  a special 
crime  deriving  from  emigration:  “ So-and-so,”  the  newspaper 
relates,  “ who  returned  last  week  from  America,  yesterday  slew 
his  wife  whom  he  accused  of  having  cohabited  with  a neighbor  in 
his  absence.”  Or  perhaps  it  is  the  neighbor  who  was  slain.2  Un- 
premeditated blood  crimes,  such  as  issue  from  brawls,  are  com- 

1 Sella  (p.  25),  makes  a striking  observation  touching  the  time  sense  of  the 
Italians  in  Switzerland:  “ They  speak  of  things  that  happened  a month  ago  as  of 
remote  things.  They  speak  of  events  of  a year  ago  as  of  events  that  scarcely  any- 
one can  remember,  as  if  a current  of  oblivion  had  swept  over  them.  Finally,  they 
speak  of  things  that  occurred  five,  six,  ten  years  previously  as  of  things  so  remote 
that  memory  no  longer  suffices  to  keep  their  record,  as  if  not  one  but  ten  genera- 
tions had  supervened  upon  them.” 

2 Of  this  type  of  crime  the  Final  Report  of  the  Inch.  Pari,  held  fviii,  p.  57)  that 
“ the  popular  conscience  almost  always  absolves  it;  . . . The  emigrant,  often  mar- 
ried but  a few  days,  deems  it  just  and  natural  that  he  should  conserve  his  bachelor 
freedom  while  abroad;  no  pity,  however,  for  his  young  wife  who,  tired  of  his  long 
abandonment,  constrained  by  continual  siege  or  driven  by  poverty,  yields  to  se- 
duction or  to  violence.” 


440 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


mon;  only  little  less,  the  more  deliberate  crimes  for  money.  The 
net  result  appears  in  that  extraordinary  rate  of  homicides  which  is 
so  characteristic  of  Italy,  above  all  of  South  Italy,  and  of  Italian 
communities,  especially  when  they  contain  South  Italians,  the 
world  over. 

The  emigrant  is  highly  superstitious.  His  religion  we  have  seen 
to  be  imbued  with  superstitions.1  The  Sicilian  will  pray,  it  is  said, 
indifferently  for  rain  and  his  family’s  health  and  for  the  lucky  out- 
come of  a vendetta  or  homicide.  Events  of  the  past  century  have 
contributed  to  reduce  the  hold  of  religion  as  such  upon  the  Italian, 
but  the  element  of  superstition,  become  second  nature,  has  been 
harder  to  dislodge.  It  brings  with  it  sometimes  a kind  of  fatalism 
which  again  is  a frequent  attribute  of  primitive  natures. 

Toward  woman  and  marriage  the  emigrant  has  once  more  an 
attitude  which  harks  back  to  an  older  time.  Marriage  takes  place 
while  the  parties  are  young.  If  the  circle  of  the  bride’s  horizon  is 
even  narrower  than  her  husband’s,  that  circumstance  is  for  him 
not  disastrous.  She  may  help  him  in  the  work  of  the  fields  and 
look  after  his  interests  while  he  earns  and  saves  abroad.  He  ex- 
pects of  her  only  that  she  should  be  home-loving,  industrious,  and 
obedient  to  his  will.  With  her  numerous  children  (so  numerous 
in  Italy  and  abroad  that,  as  an  epigram  holds,  child  bearing  and 
child  burying  must  go  hand-in-hand)  she  becomes  for  him  the 
center  of  a small  world,  or  perhaps  a retreat  from  the  greater 
world.  She  does  not  ordinarily  go  back  and  forth  much  over  the 
bridge  that  binds  with  that  larger  world.  Such  a responsibility  is 
her  husband’s.  He  it  is  who  decides  the  major  questions  of 
family  policy,  commonly,  for  example,  making  purchases  for  the 
household,  leaving  to  her  their  adaptation  to  home  needs.2  Per- 

1 On  the  retention  of  some  of  these  in  the  United  States,  see  Sartorio,  pp.  ioo  ff. 

2 It  is  this  meagerness  of  the  wife’s  responsibilities  which  creates  what  Mrs. 
Simkhovich,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  social  settlement  worker,  chooses  to  re- 
gard as  “ the  most  serious  problem  in  connection  with  our  Italian  immigration.'’ 
See  her  The  City  Worker's  World  in  America  (New  York,  1917),  p.  102.  Lilian  Betts 
had  the  same  situation  in  mind  when  she  wrote:  “ The  Italian  woman  is  not  a good 
housekeeper,  but  she  is  a home-maker.”  (“  The  Italian  in  New  York,”  University 
Settlement  Studies,  October,  1905-January,  1906,  p.  94.)  By  758  in  884  Italian 
working  women  who  reported  to  Miss  Odencrantz  “ the  pay  envelope  was  turned 
in  unopened  to  the  manager  of  the  household.”  {Op.  cit.,  p.  21.) 


THE  EMIGRANTS  — MOTIVE  AND  TRAIT 


441 


haps  the  feeling  of  jealousy  is  never  so  strong  as  among  those  who 
conceive  their  wives  to  be  a species  of  property,  deeply  prized,  no 
doubt,  but  yet  not  free  to  make  decisions,  and  therefore  to  be 
rather  guarded  and  feared  than  trusted.1 

Plenty  of  testimony  exists  to  show  that  loose  living  on  the  part 
of  male  Italians  abroad  is  common.  Our  witnesses,  who  are  gen- 
erally also  critics,  affirm  that  there  is  often  a ready  frequenting  of 
prostitutes,  a class  of  persons  all  but  absent  from  the  Italian  coun- 
tryside and  village.  Still  another  anomaly  is  that  of  wife  deser- 
tion. Just  as  the  Italian’s  affection  for  his  native  land  sometimes 
declines,  and  he  renounces  his  plan  to  return  to  it,  so  his  affection 
for  his  wife,  however  intense,  may  decline  or  in  time  wither,  while 
a new  affection  springs  up.  Such  a snapping  of  the  tie  is  common, 
and  thus  emigration  may  take  the  place  of  a divorce  court.  Both 
loose  living  and  desertion,  however,  must  be  ascribed  much  more 
to  the  abnormal  conditions  of  living  which  emigration  occasions 
than  to  a lack  of  training  for  life. 

Whoever  wishes  to  understand  the  transformation  of  the  emi- 
grants in  foreign  lands  and  whoever  in  particular  wishes  to  pro- 
mote it  must  begin  by  appreciating  the  strength  of  the  resistance 
to  change  which,  intentionally  or  unintentionally,  every  emigrant 
opposes.  Even  when  the  conscious  aspiration  to  change  is  fer- 
vid, the  unconscious  or  physical  reluctance  may  be  so  puissant  as 
to  nullify  it.  That  whole  assemblage  of  traits  and  habits,  partly 
inborn,  for  the  rest  accumulated  and  solidified  in  the  growing 
years  of  life  — the  great  majority  of  emigrants,  we  must  never 
forget,  are  adults  when  they  first  depart  — blocks  the  path  to 
change,  censors  and  repels  what  is  novel.  All  true  growth  is 
organic,  and  however  the  will  may  welcome  expansion  or  develop- 
ment in  one  or  another  particular,  the  physical  context  may  re- 
fuse to  budge  or  may  move  but  haltingly.  Change  being  difficult 
to  the  relatively  inflexible  or  inert,  as  many  things  as  possible  will 
be  kept  unchanged.  Herein  lies  the  meaning,  to  take  a striking 

1 Coletti  declares  ( Dell  emigrazione,  etc.,  p.  185)  that  in  some  parts  of  South 
Italy  men  who  marry  just  before  emigrating  sometimes,  by  way  of  precaution, 
leave  their  wives  immaculate. 


442 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


example,  of  the  persistent  demand  of  the  Italians,  wherever  they 
go,  for  Italian  viands.  It  is  not  that  Italian  dishes  are  the  best  — 
by  a similar  argument,  or  want  of  argument,  Greek  or  German  or 
French  dishes  are  the  best  — but  they  best  fit  the  ingrained  habits 
of  the  partakers.  Macaroni,  cheeses,  polenta,  olive  oil,  wine  — 
if  they  are  not  imported  they  are  made  after  the  ancestral  models, 
to  the  prosperity  of  maker  and  retailer.  And  the  Italians,  having 
stressed  vegetables  in  their  diet  in  Italy,  will  again  stress  vege- 
tables, though  the  sorts  be  different,  in  foreign  lands. 

For  the  mass  of  the  emigrants  the  rule  holds,  at  the  outset  at 
least,  that  they  will  change  only  where  all  alternatives  are  closed. 
They  must  live  in  such  houses  as  they  can  find,  having  regard  for 
their  means;  they  must  consume  such  food  as  the  country  affords; 
and  so  forth.  Inevitably,  migration  entails  a certain  minimum  of 
change,  and  the  expectation,  further,  of  return  to  Italy  sometimes 
prevents  any  considerable  exceeding  of  the  minimum.  Economic 
need  or  desire,  on  the  other  hand,  may  dictate  a wider  range  of 
modification.  Some  one  has  said  that  the  language  of  Dante 
yields  abroad  to  the  language  of  Calderon,  Cervantes,  and  Shake- 
speare. It  is  a picturesque  saying,  but  untrue.  A dialect,  often 
one  which  Dante  would  not  have  comprehended,  gives  way  to  a 
hybrid  tongue  which  meets  the  elementary  demands  of  communi- 
cation but  has  ordinarily  far  to  go  in  accent,  grammar,  and  vocab- 
ulary to  be  merged  in  the  language  of  the  new  country.  And  as 
the  emigrant’s  language  changes  piecemeal,  so,  for  the  sake  of 
greater  gain,  he  modifies  his  occupation,  when  he  can.  A field 
hand  in  Italy,  he  becomes  a miner  or  a construction  hand  abroad 
— it  is  a theme  with  endless  variations. 

Like  a violent  drug,  or  an  evangelist’s  eloquence,  or  war,  emi- 
gration produces  a shake-up  of  the  individual,  and  the  resulting 
changes  may  take  all  manner  of  surprising  forms.  He  may  be 
quite  bowled  over  and  see  life  as  from  a new  center.  He  may  dis- 
cover new  sources  of  moral  strength  or  unsuspected  aptitudes, 
winning  and  justifying  a fresh  confidence  in  himself.  Or  the 
change  may  assume  mainly  a destructive  form.  Most  character- 
istically, a break  from  traditional  religious  doctrine  and  with 
church  and  priest  ensues.  These  simply  cease  to  be  necessary,  or 


THE  EMIGRANTS  — MOTIVE  AND  TRAIT 


443 


to  count.  In  their  place  a more  positive  freethinking  may  ap- 
pear, which  is  probably  not  broadly  constructive;  or  even,  under 
stress  of  propaganda  in  the  United  States,  attachment  to  some 
branch  of  evangelical  Christianity. 

Another  development  that  often  takes  place  after  the  great 
shake-up  is  adherence  to  the  radical  social  philosophies.  Its  ele- 
ments are  clear  enough.  A proletariate  emigration  is  from  the 
first  in  question.  The  emigrants  are  at  the  social  bottom  in  the 
countries  which  receive  them.  The  instincts  of  many  are  balked 
by  abnormal  living.  They  behold  in  the  new  countries  the  con- 
trast of  rich  or  poor  as  they  never  perhaps  dreamed  it  to  be  possible 
in  Italy.  Could  anything  be  better  calculated  to  astound  the 
imagination  of  struggling  indigence  than  the  stupendous  show  of 
wealth  of  New  York  or  Buenos  Aires,  seen  in  all  its  glare  from  the 
immigrant  vessel  as  it  steams  into  the  harbor  ? The  countries  of 
immigration  are  by  selection  richer  countries  than  Italy.  The 
socialism  or  anarchism  of  the  Italians  departs  from  the  usual 
types.  These  toilers  spin  their  doctrines  coarsely  and  care  naught 
if  the  mesh  be  loose,  so  it  be  strong.  They  stand  as  remote  as  pos- 
sible from  all  those  who  contemplate  and  speculate  in  order  that 
they  may  write  books.  They  would  act.  In  this  they  simply 
illustrate  again,  and  forcibly,  the  realistic  and  practical  and  in- 
dividualistic traits  discussed  above.  And  since  these  intrepid 
social  free  lances  also,  as  we  have  seen,  waste  no  love  upon 
government  and  the  state,  the  police  of  all  lands  have  come  to 
take  careful  notice  of  their  presence. 

When  the  immigrant  once  converts  the  presumption  of  future 
return  to  Italy  into  the  presumption  of  permanent  residence  in  the 
new  country,  his  step  is  likely  to  signify  that  the  change  to  new 
ways  has  already  gone  far.  As  a consequence  or  a cause  of  taking 
this  step  he  may  marry  some  daughter  of  the  new  country.  Not 
much  is  known  about  such  intermarriage,  except  that  it  is  still 
uncommon.  Generally  it  is  the  Italian  man  who  marries  a foreign 
woman ; that  is,  doubtless,  among  other  reasons,  because  Italian 
men  are  more  numerous  than  women.1  A large  portion  of  the 

1 G.  Capra  maintains  (“  Gli  italiani  in  Australia,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1911,  No.  2, 
p.  52)  that  in  Australia  the  Italians  occasionally  marry  Irish  girls.  It  is  to  be  re- 
gretted that  we  know  so  little  of  the  facts  of  intermarriage  in  the  United  States. 


444 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


intermarriages  in  Argentina  and  possibly  elsewhere  are  unions 
of  immigrants  with  the  native  daughters  of  other  Italian  immi- 
grants.1 Whatever  the  circumstances,  however,  the  result  is 
bound  to  be,  for  the  Italian,  a more  competent  grasp  of  the 
new  country  and  the  means  to  still  further  change. 

In  general,  the  younger  the  emigrant  at  the  time  of  his  arrival 
in  a foreign  country  and  the  more  favorable  for  his  activity  the 
new  country,  the  more  profound  will  be  the  change  in  him  as 
time  passes.  After  many  years,  indeed,  recognition  of  the  worker 
as  the  farm  hand  of  Italy  may  be  difficult.  In  Genoa,  Wisconsin, 
for  example,  one  of  the  older  Italian  agricultural  settlements  in 
the  United  States,  the  farmers  have  quite  ceased  to  be  deemed 
Italians  by  their  neighbors.  There  has  been,  in  all  such  cases  as 
this,  no  catastrophic  change,  no  caterpillar-pupa-butterfly  pro- 
gression, but  gradually,  in  the  clearest  instances,  such  an  awaken- 
ing of  personality,  such  an  unfolding  of  competence,  specialized  or 
general,  as  fills  observers  with  wonderment.2  The  old  habits  and 
predispositions,  borrowed  from  a long  social  ancestry',  seem  out- 
grown. And  the  deeper  traits,  the  instinctive  ? He  would  be  a 
bold  man  who  with  present  knowledge  should  speak  positively  of 
them.  The  deepest  mysteries  of  the  New  World  populations  con- 
cern the  extent  to  which  these  older  traits  have  been  preserved  in 
the  continuing  stocks,  whether  in  the  pure  strains  or  in  those 
that  have  been  fused  in  the  crucible. 

1 Cf.  Foerster,  esp.  p.  357. 

2 Let  de  Amiris,  sojourner  at  San  Carlos,  Argentina,  speak  again  {In  America, 
pp.  93  f .) : “ Accustomed  to  the  lamentations,  the  everlasting  discontent  of  our 
people,  timid  or  servile  before  signori,  constrained  somehow  and  shut  in,  ignorant 
or  indifferent  to  whatever  does  not  touch  their  immediate  interest,  I was  amazed 
to  see  these  workmen  deal  with  each  other  as  peers  with  a cheerful  and  courteous 
self-assurance,  to  hear  them  discuss  administration  and  politics,  make  toasts  at 
banquets,  expound  projects  for  reforming  the  elementary  schools,  and  put  such 
questions  to  me  concerning  their  districts  of  origin  as  not  one  of  them,  in  Italy, 
would  have  uttered  or  dreamed.” 


CHAPTER  XXII 


ITALY  ONCE  MORE  — CONSEQUENCES  AND  REACTIONS  OF 

EMIGRATION 

When  a birth  or  a death  takes  place  in  a family,  profound 
changes  ensue  in  the  careers  or  relationships  of  its  members.  For 
any  one  person  there  may  be  more  or  heavier  work  to  do;  a 
cherished  advantage  — school,  music  lessons,  marriage  — may 
he  open  or  be  blocked;  old  desires  may  lose  their  potency,  new 
ambitions  spring  up;  dependency  or  its  opposite,  self-reliance, 
may  arise.  And  as  with  the  family,  when  members  are  lost  or 
gained,  so  with  the  larger  community. 

What  changes  immigration  — a kind  of  birth  — brings  into  the 
life  of  a country  the  chapters  of  this  book  have  amply  illustrated. 
Emigration,  the  abstraction  of  people  — a kind  of  death  — 
brings  changes  equally  great.  So  far-reaching  are  they,  in  truth, 
that  one  must  despair  of  following  them  into  their  remoter 
courses;  and,  in  the  case  of  Italy,  they  visibly  touch  so  many 
aspects  of  national  life  that  there  is  ever  an  insidious  danger  of 
ignoring  the  action  of  other  and  independent  forces.  Some 
changes  are  the  direct  or  indirect  consequence  of  the  abstraction 
or  diminution  of  certain  groups  or  classes  of  the  population,  while 
others  proceed  from  the  return  of  the  emigrants  or  from  the 
advent  of  their  savings.  Because  of  the  vast  importance  which 
the  economic  system  of  Italy  has  in  causing  emigration,  we  must 
ask  first  what  the  economic  reactions  of  emigration  have  been. 
But  we  must  be  prepared  to  find  effects  of  other  sorts  not  less 
momentous. 

Just  such  a fascination  as  has  long  pressed  economists  to  trace 
the  course  of  the  new  gold  which  poured  into  Spain  after  the 
opening  of  America  attends  the  effort  to  measure  and  follow  the 
savings  introduced  into  Italy  by  her  emigrants.  These  gains 


445 


446  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

come  through  divers  channels.  Sometimes  money  is  carried  in, 
foreign  or  Italian  — who  has  not  found  an  Argentine  copper  in 
his  lira’s  change  at  a shop  ? Sometimes  Italian  paper  is  bought 
in  the  foreign  country  and  sent  registered  into  Italy.  It  is  a safe 
and  a very  common  method,  and  when  the  letter  is  insured,  we 
have  an  index  to  the  amount  of  its  contents.  Often  a postal 
money  order  is  dispatched  — there  seems  to  be  little  distrust  of 
the  financial  departments  of  governments.  By  recommendation 
of  the  Italian  authorities,  transmission  is  through  the  Banco  di 
Napoli;  but  only  gradually  has  this  institution  drawn  away  a 
large  part  of  the  patronage  of  the  small  and  often  fraudulent 
private  concerns. 

How  much  money  altogether  passes  through  these  principal 
channels  can  be  only  imperfectly  estimated;  for  against  the 
exact  figures  possible  in  one  or  two  instances  must  be  set,  for 
others,  sheer  conjecture.  Some  students,  utilizing  various 
sources  of  information,  have  attempted  merely  to  say  how  much 
money  most  emigrants  of  a particular  sort  bring  back,  or  with 
what  savings  the  ordinary  emigrant  from  a district  returns.  So 
Dr.  Cosattini  estimated  that  seasonal  emigrants  from  the  Friuli 
brought  250  lire; 1 and  the  girls  of  Cuneo,  to  take  another  example, 
after  five  or  six  months  in  the  fields,  have  been  said  to  bring  50-80 
lire  each,  the  men  100-200  fire.2  Some  years  ago,  the  Commis- 
sioner-General of  Emigration  inferred  from  local  reports  that  a 
much  larger  sum,  300-500  lire,  was  annually  brought  back  by  the 
emigrants  who  had  gone  into  Europe,  and  that  1000-5000  fire, 
or  even  more,  depending  upon  country  and  length  of  stay  abroad, 
was  commonly  saved  by  those  emigrants  overseas  who  sub- 
sequently returned  to  Italy.3 

Still  other  students  have  made  investigations  that  are  more 
reliable  than  those  described,  partly  tending  to  confirm  them  and 
partly  differing,  since  they  seek  to  show  the  total  sums  remitted. 
For  the  year  1907,  Dr.  Lorenzoni  made  a careful  local  study  of  the 
transoceanic  remittances  into  Sicily  and  Dr.  Jarach  a similar  one 

1 Op.  cit.,  p.  83. 

2 Baldioli-Chiorando,  p.  855. 

3 “ Relazione  sui  servizi,”  etc.,  Boll.  Emig.,  1910,  No.  18,  p.  46. 


CONSEQUENCES  AND  REACTIONS  OF  EMIGRATION  447 


for  a part  of  the  Abruzzi.  Generalizing  upon  the  results  of  these 
researches  the  author  of  the  final  report  of  the  oft-cited  parlia- 
mentary study  of  the  contadini  estimated  that  the  remittances 
into  all  of  Sicily  and  the  South  amounted  in  the  same  year  to  the 
impressive  total  of  350,000,000  lire.1  Finally,  Professor  Coletti, 
partly  utilizing  these  computations  and  estimating  the  sums  car- 
ried back  personally  by  transoceanic  emigrants  and  the  sums  re- 
turned from  European  countries  as  well,  computed  that  for  all 
of  Italy,  in  1907,  the  receipts  were  550  million  lire,  or,  with 
sundry  deductions,  500  million.2  Regarding  the  ultimate  details 
of  his  computation  there  is  necessarily  much  uncertainty.  It  is 
the  more  noteworthy  therefore  that  Bonaldo  Stringher,  making 
an  independent  study  for  the  Banca  d’ltalia,  of  remittances  in  the 
same  year,  should  have  reached  the  same  general  total,  500  mil- 
lion. Stringher’s  method,  admirably  applied,  was  to  resolve  the 
payment  for  a growing  and  continuing  excess  of  imports  over 
exports  into  tourist  moneys  and  emigrants’  savings.3 

Not  enough,  probably,  has  been  made  of  the  inevitably  great 
annual  fluctuations  of  the  remittances.  Just  such  a year  as  1907 
must  be  rare,  for  not  only  were  employment  and  earnings  then 
abnormally,  perhaps  unprecedentedly,  high,  especially  in  the 
United  States,  but  the  panic  occurring  in  its  last  months  pro- 
voked extensive  liquidation,  in  order  that  the  savings  of  years 
might  be  securely  preserved  in  Italy.  How  drastic  such  liqui- 
dation can  be  is  shown  by  what  happened  in  1915  — not  a good 
industrial  year  — when  Italy  entered  the  war,  and  her  sons  came 
helter-skelter  homeward;  the  Banco  di  Napoli  received  162  mil- 
lion in  immigrant  remittances,  against  85  million  in  1914  (al- 
ready a year  of  regurgitation  of  emigrants,  especially  from  the 
countries  of  Europe),  and  38!  million  in  prosperous  1907  (when, 
however,  the  patronage  of  the  bank  was  less  widespread).4  What 

1 Inch.  Pari.,  viii,  p.  52.  2 Coletti,  Dell ’ emigrazione,  etc.,  pp.  239-244. 

3 B.  Stringher,  “ Sur  la  bilance  des  paiements  entre  l’ltalie  et  l’etranger,”  Bul- 
letin de  VInstilut  Internationale  de  Statistique,  xixiu  (1912),  pp.  93-123.  For  1907 
at  least  we  may  claim  that  these  figures  supply  a fairly  accurate  idea  of  the  dimen- 
sions of  the  flow  of  remittances. 

4 See  excerpts  from  the  report  of  the  Director-General  of  the  bank,  “ I risparmi 
degli  emigranti  trasmessi  in  Italia  dal  Banco  di  Napoli  nel  1915,”  Boll.  Emig., 


448  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

first  melts  away  in  a bad  year  is  the  surplus  of  earnings  over 
expenses. 

Notwithstanding  their  irregularity,  the  sums,  in  the  aggregate, 
year  in  and  year  out,  are  large.  It  is  scarcely  wonderful  that  emi- 
gration is  sometimes  called  a leading  Italian  industry,  and  the 
emigrants  commodities,  or  exports.  But  it  is  more  accurate  to  say 
that  labor  services  are  exported  and  are  traded  against  goods,  for 
that  is  the  meaning  of  the  excess  of  import-values  over  export- 
values  which  the  statistics  of  commerce  show.  An  achievement 
of  the  remittances  has  been  to  improve  the  value  of  the  lira  in 
foreign  exchanges.  And  in  1916  and  thereafter,  during  the  Great 
War,  one  indubitable  factor  in  the  astonishing  decline  in  the  lira 
was  precisely  the  lessened  export  of  labor  services,  the  shrunken 
stream  of  remittances.  In  Italy,  before  the  war,  the  savings  must 
have  contributed,  however  slightly,  to  that  reduction  in  the  rate 
of  interest  which  has  meant  so  much  for  the  invigoration  of  Ital- 
ian industry  and  which,  as  Coletti  has  taken  occasion  to  observe, 
enabled  the  conversion  of  the  public  debt  in  1906. 

The  rapidly  swelling  deposits  in  the  postal  savings  banks  are  an 
index  of  the  accruing  gains  through  emigration.  Even  in  Basi- 
licata, while  the  population  was  declining,  the  increase  in  deposits 
was  from  nine  million  lire  in  1900-01  to  fifteen  million  in  1905-06. 
In  Sicily,  in  Venetia,  wherever  emigration  has  been,  a similar  tale 
may  be  told.1  It  is  true  that  postal  savings  accounts  have  ex- 
panded generally  in  Italy,  but  their  increase  has  been  much  more 
accentuated  in  the  South  than  anywhere  else.  The  postal  banks 
are  peculiarly  institutions  for  the  poor;  in  the  provinces  of  little 
emigration,  other  savings  banks  have  grown  faster.  What  is 
more,  the  postal  banks  are  a witness,  in  South  Italy,  to  the  com- 
parative absence  of  channels  of  profitable  investment.  The 
moneys  deposited  are  lent  to  further  numerous  enterprises  of 
public  utility  throughout  Italy,  and  so  contribute  to  the  general 
good. 

1916,  No.  s,  pp.  19-23.  From  the  United  States  came  117  million,  against  66 
million  in  1914;  from  New  York  alone,  72  against  265;  from  Argentina  26j 
against  7. 

1 See,  e.g.,  Inch.  Pari.,  v1',  pp.  758  f.;  vi!i,  Note  ed  appendici,  pp.  586-604;  De 
Nobili,  p.  853;  Cosattini,  p.  84. 


CONSEQUENCES  AND  REACTIONS  OF  EMIGRATION  449 

Of  all  the  effects  of  emigration  none  stand  forth  in  such  def- 
inite outline  as  the  local  diminution  of  the  supply  of  labor  in 
agriculture.  When  that  diminution  is  slight,  as  for  example  in 
Tuscany,  it  may  even  bring  a sense  of  relief.1  Commonly  in  the 
South,  though  not  at  all  uniformly,  it  is  great,  so  blighting  large 
districts  or  neighborhoods,  and  producing  effects  which  have  been 
officially  compared  with  those  of  a pestilence.  Here  are  villages 
all  but  abandoned,  the  houses  uninhabited  and  in  decay,  grass 
growing  in  the  streets,  and  in  the  gardens  weeds  choking  what- 
ever vegetables  come  up.  Far  and  wide,  it  is  the  aged,  the  women 
and  the  children,  who  constitute  the  labor  force,  all  valid  men 
being  as  rare  as  when  the  existence  of  a state  is  imperilled  at  its 
frontiers.  Tremendous  over  many  a countryside  has  been  this 
limitation  of  labor;  and  so,  of  the  productivity  of  agriculture. 

The  effects  of  this  draught  upon  workers  are  to  be  specifically 
noted  in  the  conditions  of  cultivation.  To  the  mayors  of  the 
communes  of  Calabria  and  Basilicata,  and  to  many  proprietors, 
the  question  was  put,  in  1909,  Has  there  been  abandonment  of 
lands  ? Of  the  mayors,  318  said  yes,  75  no;  of  the  proprietors, 
633  yes,  98  no.  More  than  five-sixths  of  425  communes  for  which 
details  were  secured  embraced  within  their  limits  abandoned 
lands.2  In  Basilicata,  the  phenomenon  has  till  now  gone  farther 
than  in  Calabria,  and  in  Calabria  much  farther  than  in  Sicily. 
Over  much  of  these  regions  grain  had  previously  been  cultivated, 
under  the  not  very  happy  terratico  contract.  More  often  than 
not,  it  is  the  less  fertile  or  accessible  lands  that  have  been  sacri- 
ficed, but  in  the  localities  of  intense  emigration,  or  in  those  where 
the  streams  from  the  mountains  have  broken  their  bounds,  the 
better  lands  too  have  been  involved.  In  Sicily  it  is  the  latifundia 
that  have  suffered. 

Various  are  the  implications  of  abandonment.  Those  com- 
munes in  Calabria  and  in  Basilicata  in  which  the  desertion  was 
absolute  have  been  approximately  equalled  in  number  by  those 
in  which  pasture  has  succeeded  tillage;  and  indeed  there  has  been 

1 Cf.  Mori,  “ L’emigrazione  dalla  Toscana,”  p.  78. 

2 Inch.  Pari.,  vHi,  Note  ed  appendici,  pp.  606-616.  The  answers,  considering 
their  source,  are  probably  somewhat  biased. 


450 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


an  extension  of  pasture  in  many  other  regions  of  emigration. 
What  was  a cause  of  migration  from  the  rural  districts  in  the 
England  of  Thomas  More  is  here  its  consequence,  and  the  eco- 
nomic change  that  then  spelled  higher  profits  here,  in  the  first  in- 
stance at  least,  spells  lower.  Not  always,  be  it  said  in  passing,  is 
increase  of  pasture  accompanied  by  increase  of  dairying.  There 
are  still  other  kinds  of  abandonment,  which  are  not  equivalent  to 
the  desertion  of  a piece  of  land  or  its  conversion  into  pasture,  and 
which  therefore  do  not  figure  in  the  reports  of  prevalence.  Some 
sorts  of  cultivation  may  disappear  quite;  so  it  is  said  that  the 
growing  of  saffron  has  ceased  in  the  province  of  Catanzaro,  and 
that  of  flax  on  the  Sila.1  Or  there  may  be  a restriction  of  the  more 
intensive  forms  of  cultivation,  as  of  vegetables  and  the  grape.  It 
has  been  said  that  the  reconstitution  of  the  Calabrian  vineyards, 
after  the  ravages  of  the  phylloxera,  went  forward  tardily  because 
of  the  emigration  of  laborers.  In  general,  the  plants  with  woody 
stems,  which  require  much  attention,  have  in  many  places  been 
neglected,  to  their  cumulative  detriment,  or  have  been  grievously 
abandoned.  Or,  finally,  the  operations  of  tillage  and  after  care 
have  been  performed  less  thoroughly  or  often  than  formerly.2  It 
is  in  devious  ways,  hard  to  follow  and  record,  that  many  of  the 
effects  of  emigration  have  manifested  themselves. 

Day  laborers  being  scarce,  it  has  been  necessary  to  pay  them  a 
higher  wage.  Emigration  has  wrought  in  Italy  what  once  the 
Black  Death  wrought  in  England.  But  let  us  for  the  moment 
ignore  the  meaning  which  this  may  have  for  the  wage  earners 
themselves,  and  note  its  other  bearings.  For  the  whole  class  of 
small  proprietors,  the  mass  of  the  landed  bourgeoisie,  who  de- 
pend on  hiring  a few  workers,  the  new  requirement  has  been  criti- 
cal. Over  much  of  the  South,  it  is  indeed  usual  to  speak  of  the 
crisis  of  the  small  property.  These  landowners  are  forced  to  cul- 
tivate less  intensively,  or  to  sell  their  lands,  entering  trade  per- 
haps or  politics.  As  a class  they  have  played  a varying  and  often 
minor  part  in  the  cultivation  of  their  estates,  so  that  in  their 

1 De  Nobili,  p.  842. 

2 Cf.,  on  the  cultivation  of  wheat  in  the  hills  above  Milan,  Serpieri,  p.  229. 


CONSEQUENCES  AND  REACTIONS  OF  EMIGRATION  45 1 


decline  they  are  themselves  the  chief  sufferers.1  The  proprietors 
of  medium  and  large  estates  have  withstood  the  higher  wage 
costs  much  better.  Their  incomes  have  been  greatly  reduced,  but 
not  to  the  vanishing  point,  partly  because  — unlike  the  small 
proprietors  — they  have  been  able  and  willing  to  resort  to  ma- 
chinery and  other  expedients.  Whenever  an  intense  emigration 
has  been  unrelieved,  there  land  values  have  fallen.  So  often  has 
the  return  of  emigrants  brought  relief  to  the  situation  created  by 
the  drain  of  population,  that  in  many  places  a right- about-face 
shift  of  land  prices  has  ensued.  No  aspect  of  this  entire  history 
has  deeper  interest.  Why  panic  has  seized  the  hearts  of  the  pro- 
prietors when  a permanent  emigration  has  got  started  and  why 
cheer  has  come  to  them  when  emigrants  have  returned,  gold  in 
pocket,  may  need  no  special  explanation,  but  it  certainly  deserves 
a word  of  amplification. 

More  than  three  decades  ago,  when  emigration  was  still  mainly 
from  the  North,  Count  Jacini,  in  his  summary  of  the  work  of  the 
Inchiesta  Agraria,  held  that  the  maintenance  of  the  institution  of 
the  small  property  was  owing  to  the  land  purchases  made  (at 
high  prices,  it  happened)  by  the  returned  emigrants.2  With 
some  reservations,  a similar  statement  can  be  made  today. 
Wherever  the  land  has  already  been  much  fractioned,  in  Venetia, 
in  Piedmont,  and  in  much  of  the  South,  the  returned  emigrants 
have  simply  bought  out  the  existing  small  proprietors.  As  the 
price  has  mounted,  the  subdivision  has  gone  further,  and  some- 
times, as  in  northern  Friuli  and  in  interior  Sicily,  some  middle  or 
large  estates  have  been  broken  up.3  In  both  the  North  and  the 
South,  and  in  Sicily,  the  business  of  buying  and  selling  land  has 
become  established,  shrewd  speculators  acquiring  vacant  parcels 
at  low  prices,  in  anticipation  of  the  return  of  emigrants,  then 
breaking  them  into  cultivable  units,  and  selling  them  at  advances.4 
The  tendency  to  split  up  estates  has  so  far,  however,  not  been 
common,  and  it  is  conspicuously  rare  in  one  compartment,  Cala- 

1 Naturally  they  are  outspoken  against  emigration.  For  a defence  of  them,  see 
C.  Palombella,  L’emigrazione  nella  provincia  di  Bari  (Bari,  1909,)  pp.  53  ff. 

2 Inch.  Agr.,  xv,  p.  88.  3 Cf.  Cosattini,  p.  85;  Inch.  Pari.,  vi*,  p.  395. 

4 “ Relazione  sui  servizi,”  etc.,  Boll.  Emig.,  1910,  No.  18,  pp.  47  f. 


452 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


bria,  where  innumerable  purchases  of  land  have  been  made  by  the 
americani , as  those  who  return  from  overseas  are  called.1  In  the 
Marches,  in  Apulia,  nearly  everywhere,  but  far  less  in  Basilicata 
than  in  other  important  regions  of  emigration,  the  purchase  of 
small  lots  has  proceeded;  and  often  truly  diminutive  bits  of  land 
are  purchased,  as  if  the  emigrant  were  anxious  chiefly  to  invest  his 
savings;  for  he  may  have  to  sally  forth  once  again  to  earn  enough 
money  wherewith  to  cultivate  his  lot.  What  is  of  largest  social 
importance  is  the  fact  that  the  titles  to  land  often  pass  from  the 
non-cultivating  small  proprietors  to  those  who  cultivate;  and  so, 
in  some  places,  is  the  tragedy  of  “ the  crisis  ” of  the  small  prop- 
erty relieved. 

What  the  landless  generally  buy  is  land.  But  those  who  have  it 
will  often  devote  a portion  of  their  savings  to  ancillary  forms  of 
agricultural  capital,  especially  buildings  and  stock.  In  some  prov- 
inces of  Piedmont,  in  the  Valtellina  and  in  Venetia,  about  a 
third  of  the  savings  brought  back,  it  is  said,  have  been  used  for 
raising  cattle.2 

And  here  perhaps  too  a word  may  be  spoken  concerning  usury. 
It  is  a weed  that  grows  in  sheltered  places  unevenly  fructified  by 
gold.  It  implies  the  absence  of  a really  general  and  elastic  money 
market.  The  writers  of  the  Inchiesta  Agraria  frequently  noted 
how  the  gold  brought  back  by  the  temporary  emigrants  of  the 
North  reduced  the  capital  needs  of  men  and  also  added  to  the 
offering  of  capital.3  Recently,  the  writers  of  the  parliamentary 
study  of  the  rural  South  have  set  the  same  effect  into  sharp  relief. 
The  payment  of  long-standing  debts,  secured  often  by  mortgages 
on  land,  and,  less  frequently,  of  new  debts  incurred  to  make 
emigration  possible,  has  been  common,  though  its  extent  is  all 
indefinite;  in  the  Abruzzi  and  Molise  certainly  it  amounts  almost 
to  a specialty. 

Is  the  state  of  agriculture  improved  by  the  changes  which  emi- 
gration has  ushered  in  ? Wages,  we  have  seen,  have  risen  — a 

1 Inch.  Pari.,  viu,  pp.  26,  127  f. 

2 “ Relazione  sui  servizi,”  etc.,  p.  48.  Cf.  Cosattini,  p.  86. 

3 E.g.,  see,  on  the  Lombard  mountain  district,  Inch.  Agr.,  vi‘,  p.  45. 


CONSEQUENCES  AND  REACTIONS  OF  EMIGRATION  453 


third,  a half,  twice  or  thrice,  according  to  locality  and  period, 
loosely  following  in  the  wake  of  emigration;  but  the  increase  has 
had  no  reference  to  improved  quality  of  labor.  At  the  same  time 
the  landowner  has  undoubtedly  been  spurred  to  introduce  ma- 
chines, in  parts,  for  instance,  of  Calabria  and  Sicily  and  of  the 
Abruzzi  and  Molise.  Yet  even  upon  occasion  where  wages  are 
low  — and  here  one  cannot  say  whence  the  prick  has  come  — 
some  proprietors  have  deemed  it  worth  while  to  resort  to  ma- 
chines.1 It  is  a token  of  progressiveness  in  the  landed  class  for 
which  students  of  the  South  have  long  yearned. 

But  does  not  the  returning  emigrant,  he  who  has  lived  in  the 
progressive  countries,  lead  or  at  least  follow  the  way  to  a better 
agriculture  ? The  homely  story  is  told  of  a contadino  of  Lom- 
bardy who  through  his  experiences  in  a Swiss  dairy,  now  hard, 
now  pleasant,  tempered  with  instructions  and  admonitions, 
learned  such  matters  as  how  to  raise  a cow’s  yield  to  its  maximum, 
how  to  minister  to  the  beast’s  health,  how  to  adjust  its  surround- 
ings to  the  demands  of  sanitation,  and  then  returned  richer  by 
vastly  more  than  his  savings.2  It  is  an  animated  autobiography 
— fictitious,  for  aught  I know  — disseminated  as  a tract  to  open 
the  minds  of  emigrants,  but  also  somewhat  generally  represen- 
tative, of  a surety,  much  more  as  regards  the  transalpine  emi- 
grants of  the  North  than  the  transoceanic  emigrants  of  the  South. 
For  the  latter,  with  rare  exceptions  from  the  Argentine,  have  had 
little  to  do  with  agriculture  abroad.  And  when  they  return  and 
hearken  — if  they  do  - — to  the  call  of  the  fields,  it  is  once  more,  as 
a writer  has  said,  to  take  up  “ the  hoe  of  Columella  and  the  plow 
of  Triptolemus.”  3 In  truth,  it  is  a matter  for  regret,  as  one  turns 

1 “ The  use  of  machines  is  enlarging  also  in  the  western  part  of  the  circondario 
of  Gallipoli,  where  emigration  may  be  said  not  to  exist.  It  happens  that  the  use 
of  machines  lowers  the  cost  of  production  even  where  wages  are  relatively  low.” 
Inch.  Pari.,  iii*  (Apulia),  p.  686. 

2 Cattedra  Ambulante  d’Agricoltura  per  la  Provincia  di  Sondrio,  II  viaggio  e la 
vita  di  un  contadino  di  Valtellina  nel  paese  di  Goldstein,  Sondrio,  1909.  In  this  con- 
nection, however,  an  observation  of  Jarach  may  be  recalled  (“  Dell’  emigrazione 
delle  donne,”  etc.,  p.  12)  that  the  cattedre  amhulanti  of  Belluno  and  of  Feltre  had 
had  difficulty  in  making  their  instruction  effective  because  emigration  had  with- 
drawn so  many  of  the  more  robust  farming  people. 

3 De  Nobili,  pp.  875  ff. 


454 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


the  pages  of  the  parliamentary  report  upon  the  Southern  con- 
tadini,  to  find  how  general  the  tale  is  that  improved  methods  of 
production  have  not  been  introduced  by  the  returned  emigrants.1 

Here  leaving  the  more  special  study  of  the  reactions  of  emigra- 
tion upon  agriculture,  so  important  because  it  is  the  conditions  of 
farm  industry  that  initially  prompt  to  emigration,  let  us  turn  to 
the  changes  that  have  come  in  the  conditions  of  living  and  the 
outlook  upon  life  of  the  people  of  Italy.  Has  progress  come  or 
retrogression  ? What  of  those  left  behind  and  of  the  emigrants 
who  return  ? 

Wages,  to  repeat,  have  risen.  They  have  risen  in  all  of  the  com- 
partments from  which  there  has  been  emigration.  Local  studies 
have  generally  explained  the  result  as  due  to  the  rarefaction  of  the 
labor  supply.  But  the  rise,  over  many  years  (before  the  war),  has 
been  more  general  in  Italy  than  emigration,  and  the  prices  of  com- 
modities have  risen  almost  simultaneously.  It  is  certain  that  only 
a part  of  it  is  to  be  ascribed  to  emigration;  but  also  that  in  some 
places,  especially  where  agriculture  and  other  industries  have 
languished,  that  part  is  large.  Employment  has,  however,  it  is 
maintained,  become  less  steady  in  the  places  where  industry  has 
declined.  Partly  for  this  reason,  but  more  largely  because  of  the 
rise  in  prices,  incomes  expressed  in  terms  of  what  they  will  pur- 
chase have  not  risen  at  all,  have  risen  but  little,  or  have  risen  con- 
siderably only  in  some  districts  (for  instance,  in  Apulia  and  the 
Abruzzi).  Hence,  generally  speaking,  the  laborer  who  has  stayed 
at  home  has  benefited  only  slightly  in  an  economic  way  by  emi- 
gration.2 Like  the  wages  of  field  hands,  the  wages  of  artisans  have 

1 In  the  Abruzzi  and  Molise,  by  way  of  exception,  the  americani  are  said  to 
be  among  the  first  to  turn  to  better  methods.  Inch.  Pari.  ii“,  p.  257.  But  for 
Campania  we  read  that  the  land  purchased  is  regarded  as  a savings  bank  account. 
“ In  few  places  have  agricultural  changes  extensive  enough  to  be  perceptible  been 
brought  about  by  the  money  of  the  emigrants,  while  the  contrary  has  happened  in 
the  case  of  urban  properties.  Rather,  where  such  changes  have  occurred,  they  have 
mostly  been  the  work  of  those  left  behind  and  not  of  the  returned,  and  indeed  the 
zones  where  they  have  chiefly  occurred  are  the  first  and  the  second,  which  have 
supplied  the  least  contingent  to  emigration.”  Ibid.,  iv‘,  p.  613.  For  earlier  obser- 
vations, see  Taruffi,  pp.  r2r  f.  and  P.  Villari,  “ L’emigrazione,”  etc.,  p.  49- 

2 Lorenzoni,  writing  about  Sicily,  considers  that  the  gain  from  emigration  has 


CONSEQUENCES  AND  REACTIONS  OF  EMIGRATION  455 


risen,  but  if  exception  be  made  of  such  a special  increase  as  fol- 
lowed the  Messina  earthquake,  then  it  is  doubtful  whether  these 
workers  too,  oppressed  as  they  have  been  by  higher  prices,  have 
materially  bettered  their  status. 

Agricultural  contracts  have  commonly  improved.  Rents,  to 
the  joy  of  proprietors,  in  those  parts  of  Venetia  and  of  the  South 
where  there  has  been  a large  stream  of  returning  emigrants,  have 
risen;  but  more  commonly,  as  in  Calabria  generally,  they  have 
fallen,  so  that  it  becomes  more  feasible  than  in  the  past  to  supple- 
ment an  income  from  hire  by  working  on  leased  land.  Although 
even  the  cultivator  upon  such  land  must  contend  with  higher 
prices,  some  gain  doubtless  remains  for  him,  one  of  the  few  gains 
that  the  folk  of  the  mountains  of  Basilicata,  for  example,  can 
count. 

What  influence  upon  well-being  have  the  savings  of  emigrants  ? 
When  the  husband  is  abroad,  his  family  in  Italy,  however  they 
may  strive  in  his  absence,  cannot  earn  the  equivalent  of  his  wage. 
Therefore  a large  part  of  his  remittances,  sometimes  nearly  or 
quite  the  whole,  must  be  applied  to  sheer  current  maintenance.1 
There  is  question  not  only  of  the  family  still  resident  in  Italy,  but 
of  the  emigrant  himself,  who  spends  his  winter  there;  he  is  idle 
precisely  because  the  season  is  customarily,  or  for  climatic  reasons, 
one  of  idleness,  or  because  industries  supplementary  to  agriculture 
have  not  been  developed.2  An  indeterminate  part,  however,  is 
surely  applied  to  raising  the  standard  of  living.  We  know  that 
shoes  and  stockings  and  other  comforts  of  habiliment  which  once 

been  essentially  of  another  sort:  “ It  has  given  leave  to  the  contadino  abroad  to 
save  a little  capital,  with  which  upon  his  return  he  could  become  the  proprietor  of 
a bit  of  land,  or  a mezzadro  or  small  renter;  and  so  it  has  given  him  a chance  to 
enlarge  his  sources  of  income,  now  no  longer  limited  to  labor  for  hire.”  Inch.  Pari., 

vi*,  p- 137. 

1 Curiously,  in  the  Final  Report  of  Inch.  Pari,  (viii,  p.  55),  where  the  use  made 
of  foreign  savings  is  discussed,  there  is  no  mention  of  this  factor.  Sundry  factors 
are  listed  (e.g.,  the  payment  of  old  debts)  and  a (residual)  fourth  of  the  remittances 
is  held  to  be  devoted  “ to  elevating  the  scale  of  life  of  the  respective  families.” 

2 Cf.,  e.g.,  Jarach  (“  Dell’  emigrazione,”  etc.,  p.  83):  “ On  the  other  hand  the 
savings  of  150-200  crowns  which  on  the  average  are  made  in  the  Trentino  do  not 
afford  much  economic  relief  to  the  families,  since  they  do  not  always  go  to  increase 
the  family  account,  but  are  consumed  by  the  person  who  has  laid  them  by,  for  the 
satisfaction  of  his  own  desires.” 


456  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

graced  their  wearers  chiefly  on  holidays  have  arrived  at  daily  use. 
We  know  that  meat  is  a commoner  dish  than  it  was,  that  there  is 
more  wheat  flour  in  bread,  that  the  paste  alimentari  are  more 
generally  eaten,  that  sweets  have  lost  in  part  their  holiday  con- 
notations, that  tobacco  comforts  more  men  than  it  did,  and  that 
sewing  machines  are  in  wider  use.  We  know  that  the  returned 
emigrants  turn  to  such  things  and  we  infer  that  in  varying  degree 
the  stay-at-home  population  has  also  risen  to  them. 

The  circumstances  of  the  emigrants  who  come  back  are  not 
without  sharp  contrasts.  In  the  earlier  days  particularly,  the  re- 
ports about  them  conceded  little  gain.  Morpurgo,  author  of  the 
report  upon  Venetia  for  the  Inchiesta  Agraria,  wrote,  “ It  may  be 
said  that  some  emigrants  alter  their  existence  for  the  better;  but 
most,  up  to  the  present,  certainly  do  not.”  1 In  subsequent  years 
a greater  measure  of  success  came  to  the  Venetian  temporary  emi- 
grants, but  even  the  more  recent  writers  hold  that  a large  part  of 
those  who  return,  the  unskilled  men  above  all,  make  a desolate 
picture.2  Those  who  came  back  from  Brazil  were  in  general  either 
penniless  or  when  their  travelling  expenses  had  been  paid,  had 
but  little  left.3  In  reports  touching  especially  the  recent  period, 
and  more  particularly  the  South,  there  is  a strong  tendency  to 
represent  the  instances  of  success  as  in  the  majority:  nearly  every 
one  who  comes  back  from  the  Americas  can  show  a little,  some- 
times a big,  nest  egg. 

Not  many  emigrants  certainly  can  live  quite  without  working 
after  their  return,  particularly  not  many  in  Basilicata.  Some 
buy  farm  lands,  but  though  they  constitute  a most  interesting 
class,  they  are  a minority  and  seldom  acquire  enough  land  for 
independence  (partly  because  the  land  is  too  dear,  partly  because 
many  of  the  emigrants  who  have  made  money  lack  the  qualities 
which  fit  for  independent  cultivation).  Some  enter  trade  in  the 
towns  or  lend  their  money  to  others  — often  usuriously.  And 

1 Inch.  Agr.,  iv‘,  p.  102;  cf.  the  previous  pages. 

2 See  Cosattini,  p.  63.  Cf.  G.  Smaniotto-Dei  Roveri,  “ L’emigrazione  delle 
donne  nella  provincia  di  Belluno,”  Vila  Italiana  all’  Estero,  March,  1913,  pp.  21S- 
223. 

3 Cavaglieri,  pp.  1050  ff. 


CONSEQUENCES  AND  REACTIONS  OF  EMIGRATION  457 


some  buy  or  build  houses  in  the  towns,  a striking  group,  whom  we 
must  pause  for  a moment  to  consider. 

Building  or  buying  a house  is  one  of  the  first  steps  which  the 
emigrant  takes  when  the  desire  to  five  on  a higher  plane  wells  up 
within  him.  His  penury  gone,  he  is  ready  to  enjoy  existence,  and 
he  adopts  the  same  method  in  town  or  village  which  the  newly- 
made  American  millionaire  adopts  when  he  plants  himself  in  a 
residential  city.  A good  house  confers  a measure  of  social  distinc- 
tion which  the  returned  emigrant  is  glad  to  claim,  rightful  rec- 
ompense for  his  strivings  in  foreign  lands.  It  does  not  necessarily 
preclude  his  cultivating  a small  farm  near  the  town;  but  he  cer- 
tainly generally  prefers  it  to  a farm,  for  the  number  of  those  who 
acquire  houses  is  everywhere  much  larger  than  the  number  who 
purchase  farm  lands.  The  additional  fact  must  be  borne  in  mind 
that  the  emigrant  who  has  been  abroad,  not  less  often  than  the 
country  boy  who  has  lived  in  the  city,  is  thereafter  satisfied  with 
nothing  less  than  a town  life. 

These  new  houses  are  readily  enough  recognizable.  Not  gen- 
erally in  the  older  part  of  the  communes  — though  money  some- 
times is  spent  on  extending  or  refurbishing  an  old  house  — they 
are  erected  commonly  in  the  outskirts.  Not  hugging  each  other 
closely,  like  the  houses  that  line  the  well-trodden  narrow  town 
streets,  they  stand  separate,  cottage-fashion,  with  a broader  road 
before  them.  Unlike  the  houses  in  which  many  of  the  emigrants 
were  born,  these  rise  commonly  to  a second  story,  and  if  there  are 
animals  a partition  separates  them  from  the  family.  The  houses 
are  substantial,  with  a sufficiency  of  doors  and  windows;  hardly 
decorative  in  architecture;  regrettably  deficient  from  a sanitary 
point  of  view.  Plastered  in  white,  or  with  the  uncovered  brick 
showing  against  a hillside,  they  possess  a certain  picturesqueness, 
but  rarely  charm.  Sometimes,  as  in  a number  of  communes  of 
the  Abruzzi  and  Molise,  there  are  entire  quarters  that  have  grown 
up  with  the  new  abodes  of  the  americani.1 

1 Numerous  references  to  the  new  houses  and  telling  illustrations  of  them  are  in 
the  volumes  of  Inch.  Pari.  At  the  epoch  of  the  Inch.  Agr.  such  houses  were  few 
and  chiefly  in  the  North. 


45§ 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


The  same  aspiration  that  is  revealed  in  the  acquisition  of  a 
house  may  lead  to  liberal  expenditure  upon  dress  and  ornament.1 
Indulgence  of  a love  for  finery  is  often  self-defeating  and  after  an 
interval  may  give  way  again  to  more  modest  modes  of  living.  In 
those  communes  of  the  South,  however,  in  which  the  number  of 
returned  emigrants  is  considerable,  house,  dress  — an  element 
of  luxury  in  all  expenditure  — and  leisure  become  the  tokens  of  a 
newly  conditioned  bourgeois  class.  Its  affinities  on  the  one  hand 
are  with  the  new  economic  group  of  cultivators  or  tradespeople 
who  have  achieved  their  positions  with  the  aid  of  American  gold, 
on  the  other  hand  and  chiefly,  with  the  old  hereditary  class  of 
galantuomini,  with  its  inseparable  ideal  of  otium  cum  dignitate. 
Is  it  strange  that  those  who  have  cared  enough  about  the  country 
of  their  upbringing  to  return  to  it  should  pay  their  court  to  the 
ideal  of  which  their  youth  dreamed  ? 

Touching  the  mentality  and  character  of  the  returned  emi- 
grants a certain  disparity  of  opinion  is  noticeable.  This  is  due 
partly  to  the  fact  that  the  aspects  fixed  by  the  observer  differ  and 
partly  to  the  circumstance  that  the  phenomena  noticed  are  never 
at  rest;  but  further  it  sometimes  arises  because  one  man  de- 
scribes a mass  effect  while  another  infers  general  importance  from 
individual  evidences  of  change. 

“ It  must  be  confessed,”  wrote  Professor  Bordiga  in  his  report 
on  Campania,  “ that  the  great  majority  of  the  emigrants  depart 
illiterate  and  return  so,  and  at  home  have  no  influence  on  the 
spirit  of  the  country,  the  course  of  public  affairs,  and  so  forth.”  2 
In  other  compartments  as  well,  such  a statement  doubtless  holds 
of  the  great  majority.  It  is  perhaps  a graver  thing  that  many  of 
the  returned  live  in  idleness  upon  their  savings;  in  the  volumes 
of  the  Inchiesta  Parlamentare,  in  the  chronicle  of  Rossi’s  southern 
journey  and  in  minor  records,  there  is  frequent  reference  to  this 

1 Corbino  (p.  70)  tells  how  the  women  sometimes  go  about  heavily  clad  in  costly 
silks,  displaying  hundreds  of  lire  worth  of  jewelry — bracelets,  chains,  crosses,  and 
the  like.  “ It  is  sad  to  see  spent  upon  a stupid  gown  a considerable  part  of  the  man’s 
savings  accumulated  bit  by  bit  through  great  sacrifices  in  a foreign  land." 

2 Inch.  Pari.,  iv',  p.  613. 


CONSEQUENCES  AND  REACTIONS  OF  EMIGRATION  459 


condition,  indefinite  as  its  bounds  remain.1  Abroad  the  emigrants 
often  cannot  but  accept  the  bad  opinion  in  which  they  are  held, 
retaliating  with  carelessness  of  dress  and  living;  and  these  traits 
many  exhibit  after  their  return  — is  it  not  natural  that  they 
should  ? Abroad  too  no  moral  training  comes  to  them;  is  it 
strange  that  its  signs  should  be  wanting  among  the  returned,  or 
that,  here  and  there,  newly  acquired  vices  should  appear  among 
them  ? They  do  often  assume  abroad,  and  manifest  at  home,  a 
certain  self-assurance,  a challenging  disposition,  even  a sort  of 
vainglory,  which  contrasts  sharply  with  their  former  servility 
and  has  among  its  many  consequences,  some  good,  some  ill,  one  of 
sterling,  epochal  value:  a more  resolute  attitude  toward  the  em- 
ploying landlord.  Even  among  the  women  who  have  returned, 
commonly  those  of  the  North,  a growth  in  independence  has  been 
remarked. 

These  are  general  considerations.  Nitti  has  said  that  emigra- 
tion is  a distribution  of  scholarships.  It  is  not  possible  to  measure 
the  gains  in  knowledge  or  the  inferences  from  experience  that 
emigrants  bring  back.  They  have  seen  the  world  and  lived  in  it 
and  have  grown  indefinably  in  stature;  something  that  has  been 
dormant  has  come  to  awakening;  where  blankness  was,  positive 
wisdom  has  surged  forth.  “ Many  of  our  women,”  wrote  Pertile, 
“ have  learned,  in  the  German  fashion,  to  scrub  the  floors  and 
pavements  every  two  weeks,  which  they  certainly  never  did  in 
their  whole  lives  in  Italy.”  2 To  this  sufficiently  humble  instance, 
many  others  could  be  added,  but  none  more  plausible  than  those 
of  a propagandist  tract,  circulated  to  tell  how  a Valtellinese  peas- 
ant stayed  in  Germany  long  enough  to  discover  what  the  words 
“ schmutzig,”  “ Schwein,”  meant  as  applied  to  him,  and  how  he, 
as  a strike-breaker,  learned  from  a striker  what  sinning  against 
labor  solidarity  implied.3  In  Apulia,  it  has  been  claimed,  the 
returned  emigrants  show  increased  readiness  to  join  leagues  of 

1 It  figured  in  an  indictment  by  Pasquale  Villari  in  the  Senate,  June  30, 1909  and 
a defence  by  Giustino  Fortunato.  See  Boll.  Emig.,  1909,  No.  12,  pp.  98,  108. 

2 “ Gli  italiani  in  Germania,”  Pt.  i,  p.  T29;  cf.  p.  136. 

3 Ufficio  del  Lavoro  e dell’  Emigrazione  di  Tirano,  Mezza  pagina  di  vita  d’un 
emigrante  (correspondenza  famigliare),  Tirano,  1911. 


460  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

resistance.1  Some  gain  in  technical  equipment  surely  appears,  but 
probably  it  is  limited,  for  the  most  part,  to  those  who  have  had 
previous  training,  and  if  it  is  such  as  to  lead  to  the  emigrant’s 
success  abroad,  he  is  likely  to  be  kept  from  returning  to  Italy  at 
all.  What  gives  to  all  these  gains  their  social  importance  is  the 
circumstance  that,  by  contagion,  they  must  presently  spread 
among  the  general  population.2 

Does  not  emigration  give  a great  impetus  to  popular  schooling  ? 
Those  who  go  abroad  do  not,  we  know,  first  equip  themselves  for 
the  journey;  but  do  not  those  who  return  chant  the  virtues  of 
knowledge  ? No  plain  answer  of  yes  or  no  can  be  given.  Directly 
at  least  there  is  pejoration  of  a bad  situation.  Children  are  tom 
from  the  schools  to  emigrate,  so  in  Campania,  so  in  Venetia,  for 
example:  in  one  province  of  the  latter  compartment  early  exami- 
nations are  even  provided  for  children  who  expect  to  emigrate. 
Or,  as  in  Calabria,  they  are  sent  into  the  fields,  especially  for  the 
olive  gathering  and  the  harvests,  because  their  fathers  are  abroad. 
Or  they  are  left  at  home  to  look  after  the  still  younger  children, 
while  the  mothers  take  the  absent  fathers’  places  in  the  fields. 
These  are  all  common  cases.  And  among  those  emigrants  who 
return  from  abroad,  indifference  to  schooling  is  often  only  one 
token  of  a general,  long-standing  indifference  to  many  immaterial 
things. 

Yet,  abroad,  unguessed  influences  are  at  play,  conspiring  to  stir 
up  in  many  emigrants  a new  attitude.  Letters  must  be  written. 
They  never  before,  in  Italy,  had  to  be  written,  and  now  it  is  in- 
convenient and  awkward  to  ask  or  purchase  the  help  of  others  in 
writing  them.  Where  no  paths  are  beaten,  where  faces,  things, 
events,  the  law’s  demands  are  all  strange,  even  to  make  a plan, 
and  to  carry  it  out,  are  tasks  difficult  often  to  exasperation  for 
whoever  cannot  read.  And  such  a one  may  also  come  to  feel  a 
sense  of  inferiority  not  unmixed  with  shame.  He  is  cheated,  and 

1 Inch.  Pari.,  iii‘,  p.  545. 

2 Some  proselytism  even  occurs.  Italians  converted  in  America  are  said  to  have 
given  a spur  to  Protestantism  in  Italy.  See  Mangano,  pp.  91-94;  E.  A.  Steiner, 
The  Immigrant  Tide,  its  Ebb  and  Flow  (New  York,  1909),  pp.  176  f. 


CONSEQUENCES  AND  REACTIONS  OF  EMIGRATION  46 1 

his  wage  is  lower  than  another’s.  “ Send  our  children  to  school  ” 
is  his  message  to  his  wife;  and  returning,  he  adds  his  pressure,  or 
even  himself  goes  to  an  evening  school.  No  one  can  say  how  fre- 
quent is  this  new  educational  orientation,  but  its  existence  and 
importance  have  been  attested  by  many  observers.  Besides,  in 
those  regions  where  the  well-being  of  the  people  has  risen,  school 
attendance  has  increased;  so  first  of  all  in  the  Abruzzi  and  Molise, 
next  in  Sicily  and  only  thereafter  in  Calabria  and  Basilicata.1 

Important  though  it  is  to  inquire  what  changes  in  the  health  of 
the  population  have  resulted  from  emigration,  it  is  difficult  to 
measure  them  or  do  more  than  particularize  their  kinds.  Among 
the  emigrants  who  return  are  many  who  have  lived  in  comfort 
abroad,  well  sheltered  and  nourished,  and  many  who,  here  and 
there,  through  employment  in  a modern  factory,  have  learned  its 
standards  of  hygiene.  A ship’s  physician  tells  us  that  after  he  had 
himself  bathed  the  infant  of  unwilling  parents  and  restored  it  to 
them  clean  and  aglow,  other  infants  were  brought  to  him  for  a like 
transformation.  Invaluable  for  Italy  must  be  the  home-coming 
of  all  such  families ! We  can  further  understand  that  every  family 
that  lives  better  because  of  earnings  remitted  or  brought  from 
abroad  fortifies  its  resistance  to  the  inroads  of  disease  or,  if  any  of 
its  members  succumb  to  illness,  can  make  a prompter  and  surer 
claim  upon  the  physician’s  aid.  So  we  can  readily  believe  those 
students  of  malaria  who  report  that  in  various  regions  a factor  in 
the  lessened  ravages  of  the  scourge  is  the  more  robust  constitu- 

1 Coletti  (pp.  259  f.)  shows  that  illiteracy  among  new  recruits  for  the  army  de- 
clined much  between  1872  and  1901  and  at  the  same  annual  rate,  or  a lower  rate 
(we  should  expect  a higher),  between  1901  and  1907.  So  far,  however,  as  increased 
literacy  is  due  to  emigration  we  should  expect  it  to  show  most  in  the  later  years.  As 
a matter  of  fact  the  improvement  is  even  greater  for  the  whole  of  Italy  than  for 
just  the  southern  compartments.  Among  the  contadini  alone,  as  Coletti  points 
out,  the  decline  in  illiteracy  has  been  notable  for  central  and  upper  Italy,  but 
meager  in  the  southern  compartments,  and  in  Basilicata  there  has  even  been  an 
increase.  This  strange  result  Coletti  explains  on  the  ground  that  it  is  the  literate 
who  especially  depart  for  America,  and  the  explanation  doubtless  has  much  truth; 
in  view,  however,  of  the  known  high  rate  of  illiteracy  among  the  South  Italians  who 
arrive  in  the  United  States — we  are  unlucky  in  not  having  figures  by  compart- 
ment of  origin  — it  would  seem  easy  to  overrate  the  explanation. 


462  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

tions  of  people  dwelling  within  the  charmed  circle  of  a successful 
emigration.1 

But  the  question  of  health  has  another  aspect  which  no  one  who 
has  read  the  record  of  the  Italians  abroad  is  likely  to  ignore.  To 
quench  his  thirst  at  the  alluring  cascade  of  gold,  the  emigrant 
skimps  sustenance,  toils  in  perilous,  congested,  unsanitary  work- 
places, braves  all  unfit  the  rigors  of  alien  climates,  and  in  the 
decline  of  his  health  pays  the  price.  It  is  a tale  of  every  day.  By 
no  means  every  such  emigrant  returns  to  Italy.  But  no  one  who 
reflects  that  the  eastward  journey  overseas  is  made  much  less 
often  than  the  westward  can  fail  to  be  impressed  by  the  far  greater 
numbers  of  sick  Italians  reported  by  the  ship  physicians  for  the 
eastward  journey,  especially  that  from  the  United  States.  In 
1910,  for  example,  857  persons  ill  of  tuberculosis  were  counted  on 
the  ships,  of  whom  841  on  the  return  trip;  and  of  these  700  came 
from  North  America.2  In  1901-08  more  than  2500  tubercular 
patients  were  repatriated  from  overseas,  of  whom  three-quarters 
went  to  Sicily,  Campania,  Calabria,  the  Abruzzi,  and  Molise.3 
Women  are  especially  numerous  among  these  victims.  In  a 
broader  view  it  is  not,  however,  the  numbers  of  those  reported 
sick  who  measure  the  reduced  health  of  those  that  return,  for  they 
are  but  an  index  of  collapse.  Unquestionably  there  is  a much 
greater  throng  of  those  who,  though  not  broken  in  body,  have  yet 
spent  their  vitality.  For  them  no  measure  at  all  exists  and  even 
a guess  is  hazardous.  Many  also  are  the  emigrants  who  have  been 
permanently,  and  more  or  less  seriously,  maimed  by  accident  in 
industry. 

Such  diseases  as  tuberculosis  and  syphilis  have  been  introduced 
by  returned  emigrants  into  regions  previously  all  but  exempt. 
Deaths  from  the  latter  disease  have  been  more  numerous  in  the 
province  of  Udine,  where  nearly  every  one  is  an  emigrant  or  of  an 
emigrant’s  family,  than  anywhere  else  in  Italy.  Such,  however, 

1 Cf.,  e.g.,  A.  Sergi,  “ La  malaria  in  Calabria  (Bruzzano  Zeffirio)  durante  il 
1904,”  Atti  della  Societd  della  Malaria,  vi  (Rome,  1904),  pp.  441  f. 

2 F.  Rosati,  “ II  servizio  igienico-sanitario  nella  emigrazione  transoceanica  per 
l’anno  1910,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1912,  No.  8,  p.  14. 

3 G.  Candido,  “ La  tubercolosi  polmonare  in  rapporto  all’  emigrazione,”  Boll. 
Emig.,  1910,  No.  14,  p.  99. 


CONSEQUENCES  AND  REACTIONS  OF  EMIGRATION  463 

have  been  the  advances  of  medical  skill  in  a quarter  century  past 
that  death  is  much  more  rarely  the  outcome  of  illness  than 
formerly,  and  therefore  the  death  rates  for  many  diseases  have 
ceased  to  be  a gauge  of  their  prevalence.  It  is  entirely  possible 
that  in  Basilicata  and  Calabria,  where  the  deaths  from  tuber- 
culosis are  fewer  than  formerly,  the  prevalence  of  the  disease  has 
increased.  The  doctors  of  the  South  have  asserted  a connection 
between  various  maladies  and  emigration.  In  the  North,  the 
emigrants  have  brought  much  disease  from  transalpine  lands, 
which,  as  in  the  case  of  the  tuberculosis  of  the  Venetian  stone- 
cutters, is  sometimes  closely  associated  with  their  occupation,  but 
is  more  commonly  the  fruit  of  constrained  or  irregular  living.  The 
deleterious  effects  of  emigration  upon  the  Italians  of  the  North 
have  undoubtedly  been  more  serious  than  upon  those  of  the 
South;  not  by  reason  of  any  comparative  immunity  of  the  South 
Italians  — the  reverse  being  more  probable  — but  because  the 
Northern  emigrants,  in  much  greater  proportion,  customarily 
return  to  their  country,  and  only  the  more  successful  of  the 
Southern  return. 

The  wives  and  children  who  stay  at  home,  though  in  the  long 
run  often  the  gainers  by  emigration,  are  not  infrequently,  in  the 
first  instance,  touched  adversely,  and  their  loss  may  be  of  an  en- 
during sort.  The  young,  I have  already  pointed  out,  often  under- 
take tasks  beyond  their  powers ; and  the  women  by  their  excessive 
labors,  sometimes  complicating  the  problems  of  maternity,  de- 
velop anemia  or  other  impairment  of  health  and  too  early  show 
the  signs  of  general  decline.  These  things  he  beyond  statistical 
measurement  but  have  been  repeatedly  emphasized  by  careful 
observers. 

What  has  here  been  said  concerning  health  does  not  readily 
lend  itself  to  summary.  There  is  always  a danger  lest  partic- 
ularization of  this  or  that  difficulty  give  it  overimportance.  On 
the  other  hand  there  exists  no  general  index  to  show  what  has 
been  the  effect  of  emigration  upon  the  health  of  the  population. 
Some  persons  (writing  before  the  war)  have  pointed  out  that  re- 
jections from  the  army  on  account  of  low  stature  are  fewer  than 
formerly,  and  this  circumstance  doubtless  reflects  some  general 


464  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

improvement  of  health,  but  it  cannot  show  that  emigration  has 
been  alone  or  even  mainly  responsible  therefor. 

That  increased  readiness  to  partake  of  alcoholic  drinks  which 
we  have  found  among  the  Italians  abroad  has  had  its  repercus- 
sions in  Italy.  Beer  is  now  consumed  in  parts  of  the  South  where 
a few  years  ago  its  name  was  scarcely  known.  Immoderate  drink- 
ing is  still  rare  there,  particularly  among  the  countryfolk,  but 
where  it  exists,  the  americani  lead.  In  central  Italy,  likewise,  an 
increase  in  drinking  has  been  noticed  in  the  emigration  centers. 
But  it  is  in  the  North,  most  of  all,  that  alcoholism,  still  without 
in  any  sense  becoming  the  rule,  has  spread  and  caused  grave  con- 
cern. In  many  a village  there,  wine,  whiskey,  and  beer  have 
been  consumed  in  large  quantities  in  the  emigrants’  attempt  to 
counteract  the  dull  monotony  of  an  idle  winter;  the  tavern  has 
become  an  institution  which  those  who  have  not  yet  emigrated 
patronize  more  and  more. 

In  various  ways,  by  no  means  pointed  in  the  same  direction, 
emigration  has  reacted  upon  the  commission  of  crime  in  Italy. 
Sometimes  there  is  less,  because  the  active  and  discontented 
spirits  have  quit  the  country;  so  homicides  have  declined  in  such 
regions  as  Apulia  and  Sicily,  and  thefts  are  fewer.  Or  there  is 
more,  because  the  returned  emigrants  have  acquired  new  impulses 
or  adopted  new  practices  abroad ; so  resort  to  the  revolver  has,  it 
is  said,  increased  in  the  North.  The  expansion  of  affairs  con- 
nected with  the  process  of  emigration  has  undoubtedly  en- 
couraged certain  common  forms  of  fraud  or  even  given  rise  to 
new  forms.  The  disorder  in  which  some  regions  have  been  left 
has  incited  more  than  the  ordinary  number  of  agricultural  thefts, 
an  old  problem  in  Italy.  Quite  generally  the  prolonged  or  fre- 
quent absence  abroad  of  one  or  more  members  of  a household  has 
produced  a weakening  of  family  ties,  variously  manifested.  The 
aged  may  suffer  neglect.  The  wife  may  give  herself  to  others; 
infanticide  may  follow  upon  adultery  and  the  returned  emigrant 
may  take  a bloody  revenge.  For  by  tens  of  thousands  at  any  one 
time,  in  many  provinces,  must  be  reckoned  the  waves  wdiose 
husbands  are  earning  abroad.  Prostitution  has  not  increased  in 


CONSEQUENCES  AND  REACTIONS  OF  EMIGRATION  465 

these  provinces,  since  there  has  been  neither  the  anonymity  of  the 
Jarge  center  nor  the  corrupting  influence  of  the  garrison  town  and 
its  like.  On  the  other  hand,  in  certain  provinces,  as  in  Cuneo,  for 
instance,  young  women  who  as  waitresses  or  in  kindred  exposed 
occupations  in  the  countries  of  Europe,  especially  France,  had 
been  led  into  prostitution,  have  after  their  return  continued  the 
new  way  of  life.  We  have  seen  that  emigration  has  brought  to 
various  regions  material  economic  improvement,  so  tempering 
some  of  the  forces  that  in  any  society  make  for  disorder:  field 
thefts,  by  way  of  example,  have  on  the  one  hand  declined ; on  the 
other,  illegitimacy  has  fallen  off  and  subsequent  recognitions  of 
parenthood  have  increased.  Looking  at  the  complete  picture  of 
misdemeanor  and  crime,  as  it  is  pieced  together  from  many 
sources,  the  North,  it  may  be  said,  is  the  region  in  which  the 
reaction  of  emigration  has  chiefly  been  deplorable  and  the  South 
the  region  of  net  gain.  Outside  influences  have  counted  in  the  one 
case,  alleviation  of  old  troubles  in  the  other. 

How  has  emigration  reacted  upon  the  military  power  of  Italy, 
which  has  been  for  many  years  a matter  of  deep  concern  to  her  ? 
The  facts  of  the  situation  are  plain  enough ; whether  they  are  to 
be  viewed  with  optimism  or  pessimism  depends  primarily  upon 
one’s  expectations;  wearers  of  both  sets  of  spectacles  have  been 
plentiful.  The  provisions  of  the  law  are  such  that  anyone  may 
escape  military  service  by  emigrating  before  the  age  of  sixteen. 
As  Villari  has  emphasized,  this  constitutes  an  inducement  to 
emigration.1  Older  men,  when  their  class  is  called,  must  present 
themselves  for  examination  wherever  they  are  — if  abroad,  then 
to  the  consular  or  diplomatic  officials.  Failing  to  do  so,  within  a 
reasonable  time,  they  are  accounted  renitenti  alia  leva  and  are 
answerable  for  their  default.  In  those  provinces  where  emigra- 
tion has  been  slight,  they  have  been  less  than  1 per  cent  of  all 

1 “ What  does  it  signify  ? It  signifies  the  encouragement  of  emigration ! When 
one  thinks  of  the  superhuman  efforts  — and  many  of  us  certainly  remember  them 
— which  General  Govone  had  to  make  to  introduce  military  conscription  in  Sicily, 
to  what  trials  he  had  to  subject  the  country,  it  is  sad  to  see  this  same  people,  which 
so  exerted  itself  to  establish  compulsory  service,  open  the  way  to  escaping  the  com- 
pulsion.” P.  Villari,  in  Senate,  June  30,  1909,  Boll.  Emig.,  1909,  No.  12,  p.  100. 


466  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

called  to  the  colors.  In  North  Italy  they  have  been  about  6 per 
cent,  but  most  of  these,  absent  in  Europe  at  the  time,  have  within 
a year  or  two,  upon  their  return  to  Italy,  regularized  their  posi- 
tion. In  South  Italy  and  Sicily  they  have  averaged  above  12  per 
cent  and  sometimes,  as  in  Calabria,  have  exceeded  20  per  cent. 
In  1906,  of  27,000  recruits  of  the  class  of  1886  living  abroad,  only 
one-sixth  presented  themselves  for  service.  The  emigrants  in 
America  have  rarely  regularized  their  position.  In  the  last  decade 
of  the  nineteenth  century  and  the  first  of  the  twentieth  the  annual 
average  of  defaulters  was  33,000.  Though  a large  part  of  these 
were  still  living  abroad  in  1907,  barely  3 or  4 per  cent  came  for- 
ward in  the  amnesty  granted  that  year  in  celebration  of  the  birth 
of  Garibaldi.  More  recently  (but  before  the  war)  the  defaulters 
have  numbered  50,000  a year. 

Nor  do  these  losses  tell  the  whole  story.  Although  it  is  the 
healthiest  Italians  who  go  away,  the  percentage  of  recruits  who 
need  physical  rehabilitation  before  being  fit  for  the  army  is  par- 
ticularly high  in  those  centers,  like  Udine,  whose  male  population 
has  toiled  much  abroad;  and  in  the  foreign  countries  themselves, 
in  Europe,  North  and  South  America,  from  25  to  40  per  cent  of 
the  registrants  have  needed  rehabilitation.  At  all  times  there  is, 
by  way  of  still  further  loss,  a considerable  group  of  actual  deser- 
ters from  the  army,  largely  clandestine  emigrants.  And  finally 
there  are  the  reservists  themselves,  living  abroad. 

In  1915  Italy  entered  the  Great  War.  Indubitably  the  home- 
going of  reservists  from  the  countries  of  Europe  was  great,  but 
from  the  Americas  it  included  only  a modest  fraction  of  those 
stationed  there.  Some  purchase  of  Italian  war  bonds  took  place. 
In  Italy,  as  could  only  be  expected,  the  emigration  provinces  of 
the  South  were  relatively  least  represented  among  the  purchasers, 
both  in  amount  taken  and  in  number  of  buyers.  Abroad,  the  sub- 
scriptions were  at  a much  lower  rate  than  in  Italy,  and  much  less 
spontaneous;  in  the  case  of  the  5 per  cent  loan  of  1916  the  sub- 
scriptions in  Argentina  amounted  to  half  again  as  much  as  those 
in  the  United  States,  and  even  those  of  Brazil  were  substantially 
higher. 


CONSEQUENCES  AND  REACTIONS  OF  EMIGRATION  467 

The  conclusion  is  clear.  If  gain  comes  to  the  Italian  military 
strength  from  emigration,  it  must  be  indirectly,  through  such  in- 
crease in  health  or  wealth  as  this  chapter  has  examined.  Against 
this  must  be  set  extensive  losses,  which  turn  mainly  upon  the  fact 
that  emigration  has  brought  a great  decline  in  effective  citizenship.1 

Many  years  ago,  Carpi  held  that  it  was  only  the  transportation 
of  emigrants  which  made  possible,  without  government  subsidy, 
an  animated  navigation  between  Genoa  and  the  Plata.2  Actually, 
however,  during  the  years  in  which  the  overseas  emigration  was 
still  of  modest  proportions,  a subsidy  was  paid  to  the  merchant 
marine  without  sufficing  to  lend  it  robustness.  It  was  only,  as  one 
writer  has  put  it,  when  the  oxygen  of  abundant  passage  fares  was 
applied  that  the  marine  began  to  draw  its  breath  more  freely.3 
The  new  business  enabled  the  great  expansion  of  Italian  ports, 
most  of  all  Genoa  and  Naples,  and  it  gave  a tremendous  impetus 
to  the  building  of  more  ships,  until  the  Italian  fleet,  in  the  years 
1907-15,  carried  over  three-fifths  of  all  the  emigrants.  One  of  the 
great  marines  of  the  world,  its  craft  in  all  waters,  thus  owes  its 
existence,  in  no  mean  degree,  to  the  emigration  — the  great  mi- 
gration, back  and  forth  — of  the  people  whose  country  it  serves. 

To  the  increase  of  trade  which  has  accompanied  the  increase  of 
Italian  shipping,  emigration  has  tangibly  contributed.  Wherever 
Italians  have  gone,  they  have  been  followed  by  supplies  of  fruit, 
wine,  oil,  olives,  garlic,  cheeses,  macaroni,  and  other  products. 
The  heavy  cheese  production  at  Moliterno,  to  cite  but  one  in- 
stance, has  been  purchased  largely  by  Italians  in  America,  and  at 

1 See,  besides  the  Annuario  Statistico,  an  article,  “ L’emigrazione  e la  sua  in- 
fluenza sul  reclutamento  dell’  esercito,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1908,  No.  23,  pp.  57-64;  C* 
F.  Ferraris,  “ 11  movimento  generale  dell’  emigrazione  italiana:  suoi  caratteri  ed 
efietti,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1909,  No.  5,  esp.  pp.  37  f.;  Rossi,  “ Vantaggi  e danni,”  vari- 
ous passages;  Inch.  Pari.,  viii,  pp.  97  f.;  an  article,  “ Contributo  degli  italiani 
residenti  all’  estero  al  prestito  nazionale  5 per  cent,”  Boll.  Emig.,  i9t6,  No.  7, 
pp.  93  f.;  E.  Cesari,  “ Nota  sui  risultati  complessivi  e sulla  participazione  regionale 
ai  prestiti  nazionali,”  Giornale  degli  Economisti,  November,  1916,  pp.  453,  458. 

2 Op.  cit.,  i,  p.  57. 

3 L.  Fontana-Russo,  “La  marina  mercantile  e l’emigrazione,”  Rivista  Coloniale, 
May-June,  1908,  p.  425.  A relevant  discussion  with  the  situation  in  the  after- 
war time  is  by  M.  Pantaleoni,  Note  in  margine  della  guerra  (Bari,  1917),  pp.  143- 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


468 

increasing  prices.  Far  and  wide,  also,  the  people  of  the  countries 
where  Italians  have  settled  have  learned  to  prize  their  products  — 
not  merely  because  Italian  houses  have  striven  to  win  a new  mar- 
ket, but  because  the  people,  in  restaurant  and  shop,  have  experi- 
mented and  been  satisfied.  Sometimes  competitors  have  arisen 
to  threaten  the  import  trade : Italians  or  others  have  discovered 
that  macaroni  can  be  made  in  America.  But  in  the  case  of  many 
products  competition  is  difficult,  unprofitable,  or  impossible,  and 
the  new  international  trade  has  acquired  a permanent  basis.  Un- 
doubtedly a favorable  exchange  rate,  resting  upon  emigrants’ 
remittances,  itself  stimulates  Italian  importations  from  foreign 
countries;  but  whether  the  demands  of  the  repatriated  have  or 
have  not  much  to  do  with  setting  up  new  sorts  of  trade  it  is  hard 
to  say  with  confidence,  though  conjecture  is  easy.  It  is  scarcely 
irrelevant  to  record  the  fact  — for  the  example  may  be  somewhat 
representative  — that  phosphates  dug  by  Italians  in  Tunisia 
have  been  shipped  to  Milan  to  be  made  into  fertilizer  for  use  in 
Italy.1 

A blow  that  strikes  so  near  to  the  root  of  the  tree  may  fell  more 
than  has  been  intended.  If  emigration  may  be  said  to  have  any 
aim  with  regard  to  the  population  of  a country,  surely  it  must  be 
to  remove  an  excess.  Actually  its  consequences,  in  any  case  mani- 
fold and  hard  to  trace,  are  certainly  other  than  those  foreseen. 

Whether  absence  from  Italy  shall  be  enduring  or  temporary 
rests  largely  with  the  individual.  When  women  depart  overseas 
they  generally  stay  away  permanently,  and  some  persons  have 
gone  so  far  as  to  read  in  their  departure  an  index  to  the  per- 
manence of  the  general  emigration.  In  our  statistical  chapters 
we  have  seen  that,  during  a half  century  past,  four  million  per- 
sons have  been  permanently  lost  to  Italy  and  twice  as  many  tem- 
porarily. To  convert  the  temporary'  absences  into  an  equivalent 

1 See  A.  Visconti,  Emigrazione  ed  esportazione,  Turin,  1912,  and  V.  Nazari, 
“ I nostri  vini  nei  paesi  di  immigrazione  italiana  ” (to  name  but  one  recent  study 
of  its  sort)  in  Atti  del  Primo  Congresso  degli  Italiani  all’  Estero,  i,  pp.  279-384.  Cf.  a 
treatise  published  by  the  Italian  government,  P.  Trentin,  Manuale  del  negoziante 
di  vini  italiani  nelV  Argentina,  Buenos  Aires,  1895.  On  the  phosphates  of  Tunisia, 
see  Davin,  p.  692.  The  general  statistics  of  trade  are  easily  accessible. 


CONSEQUENCES  AND  REACTIONS  OF  EMIGRATION  469 

of  permanent  adult  lifetimes  would  be  an  interesting  mathe- 
matical speculation,  but  is  not  vital  to  our  argument.  The  loss  is 
comprehensive  — has  it  brought  a cure  to  a state  of  overpopu- 
lation ? 

It  is  arguable  that  the  population  of  Italy  is  not  less  than  it 
would  have  been  if  emigration  had  not  taken  place,  and  perhaps 
is  greater. 

In  the  first  place  the  death  rate  has  fallen.  To  ascribe  its  de- 
cline primarily  to  a marked  improvement  in  economic  conditions, 
such  as  emigration  is  assumed  to  have  wrought,  is,  however,  a 
mistaken  course.  After  the  unification  of  Italy,  the  system  of 
public  sanitation  was  reorganized,  and  the  discoveries  of  mod- 
ern pathology  in  the  field  of  endemic  diseases  were  applied  to 
regions  where  the  harvest  they  had  recurringly  reaped  had  been 
high.  With  the  better  training  of  doctors  and  surgeons  and  the 
incessant  improvements  of  medical  knowledge,  death  became  ever 
more  rarely  the  consequence  of  impaired  health.  Over  several 
decades  the  lowering  of  the  death  rate  appears  to  have  been 
greatest  in  just  such  emigration  districts  as  Calabria  and  Basili- 
cata, for  here  the  infectious  diseases  had  been  most  rampant.  But 
in  addition  here,  as  elsewhere,  the  recent  improvement  in  living, 
due  to  the  gains  from  emigration,  has  undoubtedly  counted  for 
much;  and  were  it  not  for  other  adverse  reactions,  such  as  the 
increased  labor  of  women  in  the  fields,  the  improvement  would 
have  counted  for  much  more.1  For  us,  however,  let  it  suffice  that, 
from  one  or  another  cause,  a material  decline  in  deaths  has  taken 
place  throughout  Italy. 

We  are  mainly  concerned  with  regions  whose  denizens  have 
been  given  to  early  marriage  and  where  the  man  of  forty  has  a son 
earning  a man’s  wage.  It  is  only  very  lately  that  the  general  mar- 
riage rate  of  Basilicata  and  Calabria  has  shown  a real  decrease, 
due  to  the  absence  of  eligible  men.  In  Sicily,  it  is  still  as  high  as 
the  average  for  all  Italy;  on  the  continent  south  of  Rome  it  is 

1 The  leading  countries  of  emigration,  Italy,  Austria,  and  Hungary,  are  the  only 
great  European  countries  having  a higher  death  rate  of  women  aged  15-45  than  of 
men.  See  G.  Mortara,  “ Tavola  di  mortalita  secondo  le  cause  di  morte  per  la  popo- 
lazione  italiana  (1901-10),”  Annali  di  Statistica,  Ser.  v,  vol.  7 (1914),  p.  71. 


470 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


higher  than  the  average.  Widowers  are  prompt  to  remarry  in 
these  districts.  But  the  broadly  significant  fact  is  that,  despite 
emigration,  and  in  part  no  doubt  because  of  it,  the  marriage  rate 
has  maintained  a high  level.1 

In  Italy  as  a whole  the  rate  of  births  has  greatly  fallen  in  recent 
decades.  Partly  the  decline  has  gone  hand-in-hand  with  the 
lessening  of  infant  mortality,  and  partly  it  reflects  those  aspira- 
tions to  comfort  which  in  other  modern  democracies  have  had  like 
consequences.  It  has  been  more  emphatic  in  the  cities  than  in  the 
rural  regions  and  so  far  has  no  obvious  connection  with  emigra- 
tion. But  one  considerable  emigration  district  has  supplied  an 
impressive  exception  to  this  statement:  Piedmont,  whose  sons 
and  daughters  return  from  France  with  the  conception  of  the  two- 
child  family  • — has  a more  remarkable  instance  of  the  effects  of 
emigration  been  discovered  ? 2 Thus  far  the  decline  in  births  in 
the  South  has  been  relatively  slight,  and  the  rate  of  births  there 
still  ranks  with  the  highest  among  European  peoples.  This  is  a 
fact  lost  sight  of  by  those  who  quote  the  census  to  show  that 
South  Italian  families  are  small : their  four  to  six  members  are  the 
survivors  of  more  births  (the  deaths  in  particular  of  young  chil- 
dren have  only  recently  grown  fewer)  and  they  take  no  account  of 
persons  absent  in  foreign  countries.3  Death  rates  are  always  the 

1 “ The  average  annual  number  of  bachelors  (1900-01)  who  marry  is  103  per 
1000  censused  in  Basilicata  and  85  in  Calabria,  while  in  the  entire  population  of 
Italy  it  is  scarcely  67.  Even  more  pronounced,  relatively  to  the  country’s  average, 
is  the  nuptiality  of  widowers:  in  Basilicata  per  1000  censused,  82  marry  in  a year, 
in  Calabria  62,  in  all  Italy  only  37.”  G.  Mortara,  “Basilicata  e Calabria  secondo 
le  statistiche  demografkhe,”  Giornale  degli  Economist,  1910  (April,  pp.  435-462, 
June,  pp.  659-676),  p.  663.  The  census  of  1911  found  a larger  proportion  both  of 
males  and  of  females  to  be  married  than  the  censuses  of  1872,  1882,  and  1901. 

2 A.  Necco,  “ II  problema  della  popolazione  in  Italia:  Perche  la  natalita  declina 
piu  rapida  in  Piemonte  e Liguria,”  Riforma  Sociale,  June-July,  1913,  pp.  433-475. 
Some  writers  believe  that  emigration  is  a force  tending  to  lower  the  birth  rate  for 
the  whole  country;  cf.  C.  Gini,  I fattori  demografici  dell’  ewluzione  delle  nazioni 
(Turin,  1912),  p.  105. 

3 “ The  number  of  those  who  die  without  having  entered  upon  the  period  of 
economic  productivity  is  very  high,  and,  among  males,  the  number  also  of  those 
who  die  without  having  completed  it.  ...  At  almost  ail  ages  the  probable  further 
duration  of  life  is  lower  in  the  two  southern  regions  than  in  Italy  as  a whole.” 
Mortara,  “ Basilicata  e Calabria,”  p.  443. 


CONSEQUENCES  AND  REACTIONS  OF  EMIGRATION  47 1 


first  to  respond  to  new  conditions  of  living  and  of  knowledge; 
birth  rates,  in  comparison,  are  inert,  yet  what  has  happened  in 
Piedmont  may  possibly,  given  time  enough,  have  a parallel  in 
other  regions. 

Not  only  has  the  total  population  of  Italy  not  been  lessened  by 
her  prodigious  emigration,  but  it  has  increased  annually  even  in 
the  great  period  of  emigration  (1880-1910)  and  then  actually  at  a 
faster  rate  than  before.  The  expanding  cities  have  been  able  to 
absorb  their  increase,  but  the  mountain  and  farm  lands  have  not; 
hence,  from  them,  emigration,  which  in  the  first  instance  is  a 
kind  of  substitute  for  death,  and  subsequently,  in  many  places,  a 
means  of  allowing  a larger  population  to  subsist.  With  a less 
fecund  population,  the  first  great  exodus  might  have  brought 
enduring  relief ; rather  it  appears  to  have  been  a means  of  main- 
taining a high  fecundity.  In  the  somewhat  technical  sense,  it  has 
therefore  not  lifted  the  standard  of  living.  Sicily,  which  in  1871 
had  a population  of  2,580,000,  had  in  1901,  3,520,000;  between 
1872  and  1905,  its  excess  of  births  over  deaths  averaged  annually 
nearly  n per  1000,  while  that  of  all  Italy  was  little  more  than  6. 
Calabria  and  Basilicata  had  a much  greater  annual  excess  of 
births  over  deaths  in  the  period  1892-1908  than  in  the  seventh 
and  eighth  decades  of  the  past  century. 

Although  emigration  has  not  prevented  an  increase  in  the  in- 
habitants of  the  whole  country,  its  tremendous  action  has  led  to  a 
thinning  of  the  population  of  particular  localities.  The  first  fear 
that  the  South  might  prove  another  Ireland  was  given  support 
when  it  was  revealed  that  between  1882  and  1901  the  population 
of  Basilicata  had  declined  some  3.4  per  cent.  This  was  the  only 
instance  in  these  years  of  a decline  for  an  entire  province  or  com- 
partment, but  even  before  1882  and  in  the  years  since  there  have 
been  numerous  instances  of  decline  in  the  population  of  cir- 
condarii.  The  population  of  Basilicata  has  continued  to  shrink 
since  1901,  and  that  of  the  Abruzzi  and  Molise  has  followed  suit. 
In  the  other  southern  compartments  the  rate  of  growth  was  only 
much  slackened  in  this  extraordinary  decade.  When  the  popu- 
lation of  particular  communes  is  considered,  there  are  numerous 
cases  of  drastic  reductions. 


472 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


These  then  are  the  consequences  of  emigration  as  regards  the 
size  of  the  Italian  population.  When  its  composition  is  studied, 
those  changes  appear  to  which  more  or  less  explicit  reference  has 
already  been  made.  Wide  currency  has  been  given  to  figures 
compiled  in  1901  showing  that,  as  a result  of  the  previous  twenty 
years’  emigration,  one  man  in  eight  aged  21-50  had  been  lost  to 
the  nation  and  in  some  compartments  a much  higher  proportion. 
Relatively  speaking,  the  aged  — those  65  or  more  — are  half 
again  as  numerous  in  some  compartments  as  formerly,  and  the 
children  are  more  numerous.  Women,  who  in  all  Italy  exceed 
men  but  little,  are  in  a pronounced  majority  in  the  great  emi- 
gration provinces. 

An  old  moot  point  with  students  of  migration  has  been  the 
question,  What  is  an  emigrant  worth  ? What  loss  does  he  bring 
to  the  old  country,  what  gain  to  the  new  ? In  Italy  the  matter 
has  been  discussed  with  more  than  usual  competence,  and  the 
issues  clearly  discriminated.  First,  Professor  Pareto,  a quarter 
century  ago,  applied  to  the  figures  for  Italian  emigration  Engel’s 
reckoning  of  the  cost  of  bringing  up  a child,  and  inferred  that  the 
loss  to  Italy  due  to  the  emigration  of  those  who  had  not  paid  back 
in  productive  labor  the  cost  of  their  rearing  ran  into  hundreds 
of  million  lire  per  year.  A decade  later,  the  question  came  into 
open  controversy.  The  computation  of  economic  loss  now  was 
led  into  minutiae  and  the  details  of  a balance  sheet  were  pre- 
sented. But  the  propriety  of  discussing  such  a loss  was  also 
vigorously  questioned.  Professor  Coletti  argued,  that,  as  the 
family  grows,  the  older  children  go  to  work  and  sumptuary  expen- 
diture is  reduced ; that  mothers  increase  their  care;  that  in  some 
sorts  of  economic  activity  — notably  under  the  mezzadria  con- 
tract in  agriculture  — the  young  children  have  a precocious  value; 
that  cost  of  production  for  that  matter  never  does  determine  the 
value  of  men;  and  that  in  any  case  all  statistical  reckoning  of 
cost  is  impossible.  Professor  Pareto  in  a later  work  reiterated 
that,  whatever  the  interpretation,  it  would  be  false  to  ignore  the 
primary  evidence  of  loss.1 

1 Professor  Pareto’s  argument  first  appeared  in  his  Cours  d'iconomit  politique 
(2  vols.,  Lausanne,  1896-97),  i,  pp.  151-153.  See  also  A.  Beneduce,  “ Capitali 


CONSEQUENCES  AND  REACTIONS  OF  EMIGRATION  473 


With  a computation  of  money  loss  we  need  not  be  here  con- 
cerned. And  if  the  emigration  of  the  eighties  had  finally  relieved 
of  a burden  those  who  remained,  then  only  a gain  might  be  in 
question.  But  we  have  just  seen  that  through  forty  years  of  emi- 
gration the  population  has  generally  increased,  and  the  inference  is 
that  the  new  additions  have  generally  not  been  better  able  to  thrive 
than  the  older  elements  had  been.  Where  a great  temporary 
emigration  has  been  developed,  as  in  Udine,  it  is  as  if  the  bound- 
aries of  the  country  had  been  enlarged  and  more  people  could 
live  than  before.  Somewhat  too  the  transatlantic  remittances  are 
an  evidence  of  such  an  enlargement.  But  the  great  fact  remains 
that  in  the  emigration  centers  of  Italy  only  a very  gradual  or  a 
very  recent,  and  in  any  case  a far  from  adequate,  improvement  in 
living  conditions  has  occurred.  The  country  has  taxed  itself  to 
supply  new  contingents  of  emigrants.  Protection  and  training 
urgently  needed  by  the  first-born  have  been  withheld  from  them 
in  order  that  others  might  be  born,  reared,  and  sent  forth.  Not 
that  the  emigrants  were  planned  for  their  careers  from  the  first. 
They  resemble  rather  an  unfulfilled  purpose,  a resolution  given 
up.  In  an  older  time  (and  somewhat  it  is  so  still)  death  would 
have  removed  these  children  of  poverty;  now  they  are  sold  to  a 
higher  bidder,  Emigration,  and  what  is  received  must  often  not 
pay  their  cost. 

sottratti  all’  Italia  dall’  emigrazione  per  l’estero,”  Giornale  dsgli  Economisti, 
December,  1904,  pp.  506-519;  F.  Coletti,  “ II  costo  di  produzione  dell’  uomo  e il 
valore  economico  degli  emigranti,”  ibid.,  March,  1905,  pp.  260-291;  V.  Pareto, 
“ II  costo  di  produzione  dell’  uomo  e il  valore  economico  degli  emigranti,”  ibid.,  April, 
1905,  pp.  322-327;  Beneduce,  “ Capitali  personali  e valore  economico  degli  emi- 
granti,” ibid.,  July,  1905,  pp.  33-44;  Coletti,  “ Ancora  del  costo  di  produzione  dell’ 
uomo  e del  valore  economico  degli  emigranti,”  ibid.,  August,  1905,  pp.  1 79-190. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 


PHASES  OF  OPINION  AND  POLICY  IN  ITALY 

Tot  capita  tot  sententiae  an  Italian  Foreign  Affairs  Minister  once 
affirmed,  speaking  of  the  emigration  question.  But  if  diversity  of 
opinion  is  at  any  one  moment  paramount,  the  history  of  opinion 
in  Italy  admits  easily  of  classification  into  three  periods.  That 
they  overlap  goes  without  saying.  As  evidence  of  tendency  they 
stand  clear.  In  the  first,  men  deplored  emigration;  in  the  second 
they  deemed  it  necessary  and,  upon  some  grounds,  positively 
advantageous;  in  the  third,  regarding  it  as  not  the  less  necessary, 
they  accumulated  concrete  evidence  of  gains  at  home  and  dis- 
cerned it  to  be  a manageable  instrument  to  expansion  abroad.  In 
the  first  period  they  sought  to  curb  it,  in  the  second  to  protect  and 
encourage  — without  stimulating  — it,  in  the  third  to  cherish  it 
and  give  it  direction.  But  having  thus  absolutely  stated  the 
course  of  opinion,  let  us,  in  fairness,  examine  its  content  more 
narrowly. 

The  First  Period:  until  about  1895 

As  early  as  January,  1868,  a deputy,  Lunaldi,  began  a discus- 
sion in  Parliament  in  which  he  lamented  the  fact  of  emigration 
and  recited  its  evils.  In  May,  1872,  another  deputy,  Tocci, 
sounded  an  alarm  which  Minister  Lanza  minimized;  but  Lanza 
by  the  following  January  changed  his  opinion  and  then  main- 
tained that  not  only  should  all  illicit  emigration  be  put  down,  but 
even  voluntary  and  legal  departures  should  be  somewhat  checked. 
The  writers  of  the  time  held  similar  views,  Carpi  inferring  from 
the  reports  of  “ nearly  all  the  consuls  ” that  the  evils  due  to  emi- 
gration equalled  if  they  did  not  exceed  the  benefits,1  and  Floren- 
zano  concluding  that  emigration  is  “ a very  grave  evil  for  the 
country.”  2 

1 Carpi,  i,  P-  29. 

2 Florenzano,  p.  297.  Almost  identical  language  was  used  twenty  years  later  by 
Godio  (p.  104),  who  recalls  the  contemporary  phrase,  “ the  open  sore  of  emigration.” 


474 


OPINION  AND  POLICY  IN  ITALY 


475 


Among  the  countries  of  Europe,  Italy,  in  these  years,  was 
almost  alone  in  having  no  law  on  emigration.  In  1876-87,  inci- 
dental provisions  of  one  sort  or  another  came  through  Nicotera, 
Depretis,  Giudice,  and  Minghetti.  In  December,  1887,  Crispi 
introduced  a bill  for  a general  emigration  law,  which,  largely 
through  the  eloquence  of  De  Zerbi,  was  enacted  in  the  following 
May. 

“ Emigration,”  this  instrument  began,  “ shall  be  free  save  for 
such  duties  as  the  laws  impose  upon  citizens.”  But  its  inspiration 
had  been  the  unhappy  fortunes  of  the  Italians  abroad  and  the 
drain  upon  the  home  land;  hence  its  special  aim,  apart  from  a 
small  measure  of  control  over  ticket  agents,  was  restrictive.  For 
a soldier  to  depart  before  the  age  of  thirty-two  was  all  but  for- 
bidden, and  many  a man  who  had  sought  the  hospitality  of  an- 
other land  found  himself  virtually  exiled.  It  was  a law,  like  so 
many  another,  prompted  more  by  fear  than  by  a supple  under- 
standing of  its  theme.1 

The  Second  Period:  about  1895-1908 

Emigration  was  not  curbed,  but  stubbornly  went  its  way. 
Here,  it  would  seem,  was  a phenomenon  more  apt  to  make  laws 
than  to  obey  them.  Men  began  to  believe  that  all  violent  inter- 
ference with  its  course  must  only  precipitate  evils  greater  than 
those  that  had  come  in  its  train.  Of  the  new  view,  no  clearer 
spokesman  is  to  be  found  than  Senator  Bodio,  who  said  before  the 
Fourth  Geographic  Congress: 

“ Emigration  is  for  Italy  grounded  in  necessity.  Two  or  three 
hundred  thousand  persons  a year  must  go  from  us  in  order  that 
those  who  stay  may  find  work.  . . . Migrations  are  ordained  by 
Providence.  In  the  social  order  their  task  is  analogous  to  that  of 
the  ocean  and  air  currents  in  the  physical,  which  spread  move- 
ment and  life  throughout  the  earth.”  2 

1 C.  Festa,  L’emigrazione  nella  legislaziane  comparata,  Castrocaro,  1904;  A. 
Brunialti,  “ L’esodo  degli  italiani  e la  legge  sull’  emigrazione,”  Nuova  Antologia, 
July,  1888,  pp.  96-114. 

2 L.  Bodio,  “ Dell’  emigrazione  italiana  e dell’  applicazione  della  legge  31  gennaio 
1901,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1902,  No.  8,  pp.  9,  21. 


476  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

In  1896  Nitti  wrote  (and  he  subsequently  had  many  occasions 
to  repeat  his  thought) : 

“ Emigration,  in  a large  view,  is  not  only  no  artificial  phenom- 
enon, but  is  irrefragably  necessary.  It  alone  can  provide  a power- 
ful safety  valve  against  class  hatreds.  It  is  a masterful  school,  and 
the  great  and  sole  avenue  to  salvation  for  a country  wanting  in 
material  resources  but  fruitful  of  men.”  1 

Repeatedly  too  that  staunch  protagonist  of  his  native  South, 
Senator  Fortunato,  has  uttered  a kindred  sentiment,  for  example: 

“ Emigration  is  a good  or  an  evil  according  to  point  of  view;  at 
all  events  an  evil,  I should  almost  say,  of  a Providential  sort,  if 
it  frees  us,  as  undeniably  it  does,  from  even  greater  woes.”  2 

A recent  chief  of  the  Emigration  Service,  Di  Fratta,  once  in- 
structed recruits  to  his  department  in  these  words: 

“ The  history  of  mankind  is  the  history  of  migrations,  of  suc- 
cessive human  displacements  and  adaptations.  . . . Emigration 
is  peaceful,  is  continuous,  and  has  a rhythm  easily  discovered. 
Actually,  even  in  its  present  form,  it  is  produced  by  the  same  ele- 
mental motives  that  have  caused  the  great  historical  displacements 
of  peoples.  It  cannot  be  judged  in  the  usual  categories  of  good 
and  evil,  of  advantage  and  disadvantage.”  3 

The  Roman  Catholic  view,  finally,  has  established  the  necessity 
of  emigration  in  the  sovereign  behest,  Increase  and  multiply, 
which  man  must  obey  till  his  mission  on  earth  is  completed.  In 
the  words  of  Bishop  Bonomelli,  whose  ideals  and  work  have  be- 
come familiar  in  several  lands : 

“ Emigration  is  demanded  by  Nature  and  by  the  Author  of 
Nature.  To  proceed  to  limit  it  or  to  suppress  it  would  be  both 
stupid  and  wrong.”  4 

1 F.  S.  Nitti,  “ La  nuova  fase  della  emigrazione  d’ltalia,”  Riforma  Sociale, 
December,  1896,  p.  748.  Cf.  his  words  before  the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  June  21, 
1905,  Boll.  Emig.  1905,  No.  15,  p.  37.  Bodio  spoke  in  a similar  vein  before  the 
Second  Geographic  Congress,  cited  by  A.  Brunialti,  Le  colonie  degli  italiani  (Turin, 
1897),  p.  251. 

2 G.  Fortunato,  II  mezzogiorno  e lo  stato  italiano  (Bari,  19 n),  ii,  p.  504. 

3 P.  Di  Fratta,  “ La  tutela  degli  emigranti,”  Boll.  Emig.  1912,  No.  3,  p.  4.  The 
speech  is  translated  in  New  York  Evening  Post,  March  2,  1912,  p.  4. 

* G.  Bonomelli,  L’ emigrazione  (2d  ed.,  Rome,  1912),  p.  9.  For  a view  concord- 
ant with  this  and  not  less  authoritative,  see  “ Un  intervista  con  monsignor  Scala- 


OPINION  AND  POLICY  IN  ITALY 


477 

Besides  being  necessary,  so  runs  the  argument,  emigration  is 
beneficial.  In  the  later  nineties  a new  economic  reckoning  began 
to  be  made,  revealing  valuable  gains,  earnests  of  still  greater 
rewards,  if  emigration  were  allowed  a free  course.  Einaudi’s 
spirited  recital  of  the  Merchant  Prince,  written  in  admiration  of 
Anglo-Saxon  traditions,  showed  how  Italian  capital  and  enter- 
prise might  transform  “ Little  Italy  ” into  “ Greater  Italy.” 
Trade,  it  declared,  should  follow  the  emigrants.  Were  not  these 
humble  folk,  as  Bodio  held,  Italy’s  best  travelling  salesmen  ? 
Defence  of  emigration  became  popular  as  men  counted  the  sav- 
ings dispatched  home  by  the  wayfarers,  beheld  the  foreign  mar- 
kets of  Italy  grow,  and  discovered  a new  era  in  the  coming  of  an 
international  exchange  rate  favorable  to  Italy.1 

With  these  newer  views  the  law  of  1888  was  harshly  out  of  ac- 
cord. It  left  the  emigrant  to  his  own  devices.  The  epoch-making 
law  of  1901,  inspired  largely  by  Luzzatti,  “ the  most  important  of 
our  social  laws  ” as  Pantano  called  it,  rests  upon  a different  basis. 
In  Di  Fratta’s  words,  it  presumes  “ that  the  emigrant,  by  the 
very  fact  of  his  social  condition  and  his  character,  is  an  incapable 
...  is  now  too  credulous,  now  too  shy,  in  general  ignorant,  and 
as  such  is  readily  outwitted  and  defrauded.”  2 Tittoni’s  phrases 
are  even  more  expressive:  “ These  great  currents  of  our  workers 
who  go  abroad  resemble  the  currents  of  birds  and  fishes;  the 
fishes  are  pursued  by  sharks  seeking  to  devour  them,  the  birds  by 

brini,”  L’ltalia  Coloniale,  August-September,  1904,  pp.  167-172.  Cf.  the  argu- 
ment of  a modernist  priest,  G.  Preziosi,  II  problema  dell’  Italia  d’oggi  (Milan,  1907), 
pp.  28-37. 

1 Baron  Tittoni,  in  the  period  of  his  earlier  ministry,  had  occasion  now  and  then 
to  dwell  upon  these  gains.  See  Italy’s  Foreign  and  Colonial  Policy,  a Selection  from 
the  Speeches  Delivered  in  the  Italian  Parliament  by  the  Italian  Foreign  A fairs  Minister, 
Senator  Tommaso  Tittoni  (London,  1914),  pp.  155,  210.  But  the  exportation  of 
capital  he  held  to  be  a dream  (p.  205  — Deputies,  1909) : “ Every  time  I have  been 
urged  to  use  my  influence  in  favor  of  some  important  undertaking  abroad  in  which 
the  investment  of  Italian  capital  would  have  been  desirable,  I have  made  every  pos- 
sible effort  to  secure  it,  but  these  Italian  capitalists  willing  to  take  into  consideration 
such  investments  are  not  to  be  found,  and  if  by  chance  one  of  them  turns  up  who  is 
disposed  to  risk  his  capital,  it  is  only  upon  condition  that  the  Government  guarantee 
the  interest  on  the  money  invested.” 

2 Op.  tit.,  p.  5. 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


478 

falcons  and  other  birds  of  prey  seeking  to  ravish  them,  the  emi- 
grants are  accompanied  by  a troop  of  exploiters  eager  to  pounce 
upon  and  despoil  them.”  1 What  such  persons  need  is  protection, 
and  the  law  which  provides  it  has  a more  emphatically  paternal 
character  than  any  modern  emigration  law  enacted  previously  or 
since,  though  some  recent  laws  (the  Spanish  for  example)  have 
taken  their  cue  from  it.  The  machinery  which  it  sets  up  aims  to 
exclude  entirely  from  participation  in  the  commercial  sides  of  emi- 
gration persons  who  cannot  supply  guarantees  of  honesty;  to  pre- 
vent all  misdirection  of  emigrants  to  disappointing  destinations; 
to  provide  positive  assurance  that  those  seeking  to  emigrate  shall 
readily  find  responsible  persons  to  deal  with;  to  assist  the  emi- 
grants, wherever  they  may  be,  without  expense  to  them,  to  main- 
tain their  rights.  Such  are  the  general  principles  of  the  legislation. 
In  turn  they  are  the  means  of  rendering  effective  a policy  which, 
on  the  platform  and  in  the  press,  men  in  authority  and  private 
citizens  have  frankly  held  to  be : holding  the  emigrant  as  closely 
united  as  possible  to  the  Mother  Country.  Emigration  must  be 
protected,  Pantano  has  said,  to  take  but  a single  instance,  so  that 
it  “ shall  not  be  miserably  lost  to  our  country,  our  nationality  and 
our  economic  and  political  future.”  2 

To  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  the  law  gives  power  to 
suspend  emigration  to  any  place,  not  merely  in  the  public  interest, 
but  whenever  “ the  life,  fiber ty  and  property  of  the  emigrant  are 
at  stake.”  This  power,  as  we  know,  was  exercised  on  a famous 
occasion  in  the  case  of  Brazil,  and  subsequently  in  the  cases  of 
New  Orleans,  Uruguay,  and  Argentina. 

The  most  elaborate  creation  of  the  law  is  the  office  of  Commis- 
sioner-General of  Emigration,  depending  upon  the  Ministry  of 
Foreign  Affairs.  It  is  the  center  of  all  the  public  protective  in- 
stitutions, and  stands  in  a definite  relationship  with  the  private 
as  well.  From  this  office,  ably  held  in  the  past  by  such  men  as 
Bodio,  Reynaudi,  Pantano,  Di  Fratta,  and  L.  Rossi,  the  Bollet- 
tino  delV  Emigrazione  is  published,  a rich  mine  of  information. 

1 Italy's  Foreign  and  Colonial  Policy,  p.  117. 

2 Boll.  Emig.,  1904,  No.  11,  p.  40;  cf.  p.  43.  See  also  Tittoni  in  Italy's  Foreign 
and  Colonial  Policy,  p.  200. 


OPINION  AND  POLICY  IN  ITALY 


479 


The  Commissioner- General  is  a member  of  the  Emigration  Coun- 
cil, a broadly  representative  organization  of  twelve  persons  who 
meet  in  at  least  two  sessions  a year  to  discuss  the  larger  problems 
that  call  for  action.  A high  level  of  competence  has  characterized 
the  Council’s  membership  and  its  deliberations  have  carried 
weight. 

No  company  may  sell  passage  tickets  to  emigrants  unless  duly 
licensed  by  the  Commissioner-General  as  an  emigrant  carrier,  and 
the  rates  for  passage  are  fixed  every  three  months  by  the  Com- 
missioner-General, after  consultation  with  a variety  of  interests. 
In  the  effort  to  protect  emigrants,  needlessly  favorable  terms  were 
at  first  made  with  foreign  carriers.  The  charges  for  passage  have 
mounted  substantially,  but  the  poorer  types  of  vessel  have  been 
gradually  eliminated.  It  cannot  be  said  that  all  incitement  to 
emigration  has  disappeared,  for  the  twelve  or  fifteen  thousand 
ticket  agents  in  all  Italy  have  abundant  scope  for  solicitation. 
The  tax  of  eight  lire  which  the  law  requires  every  carrier  to  pay  in 
respect  of  every  ticket  sold,  and  also  all  license  fees  and  other 
sorts  of  income,  are  credited  at  once  to  an  Emigration  Fund,  ad- 
ministered by  a permanent  Parliamentary  Committee.  From 
this  Fund,  so  largely  contributed  by  those  whom  Luzzati  has 
called  “ the  flower  of  our  unhappy  people,”  no  expenditure,  how- 
ever noble  in  intent,  is  allowed  unless  clearly  for  the  entire  and 
exclusive  advantage  of  the  emigrants. 

It  is  the  aim  of  the  Commissioner-General  so  to  enlighten  pro- 
spective emigrants  that  they  may  avoid  the  pitfalls  that  lie  in  the 
path  of  the  ignorant ; hence  — besides  the  Bollettino  — innumer- 
able free  popular  circulars,  notices,  instructions  for  emigrants  who 
select  particular  countries.  Some  years  ago,  for  example,  he 
issued  a first  edition  of  50,000  copies  of  a collection  of  rules  for  the 
avoidance  and  treatment  of  tracoma,  for  use  both  in  Italy  and 
Brazil.  When  quick  action  is  necessary,  he  may  turn  to  the  public 
press  to  discourage  men  from  setting  forth  for  work  in  some 
countries  — as,  for  example,  when  the  enterprise  of  the  Panama 
Canal  was  begun.  When,  early  in  1916,  a colliery  near  Nancy 
asked  for  Italian  laborers  and  offered  them  good  terms,  the  Com- 
missioner replied  that  laborers  would  be  sent  only  if  the  terms 


480 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


were  applied  also  to  the  Italians  already  there ; the  condition  was 
not  met,  the  laborers  were  not  sent.1 

To  furnish  information  on  the  general  problems  of  emigration, 
in  particular  to  aid  in  executing  the  latest  suggestions  of  the  Com- 
missioner-General, there  is  a widespread  system  of  local  commit- 
tees ( comitati  mandamentali  0 comunali),  several  thousand  in 
number,  composed  of  official  and  other  persons,  in  no  way  in- 
terested in  the  business  of  emigration.  When,  a number  of  years 
ago,  employers  in  the  southern  United  States,  who  could  not  offer 
satisfactory  working  conditions,  entrusted  prepaid  tickets  to  their 
agents  in  Italy  to  induce  laborers  to  come,  the  Commissioner- 
General  issued  a circular  to  all  the  committees  (among  other 
bodies)  exposing  the  practice;  it  is  one  instance  among  a great 
number.  It  must  be  confessed,  however,  that  these  committees 
as  a whole  have  never  functioned  successfully,  partly  because 
mayor,  doctor,  and  priest  do  not  combine  well,  partly  because 
philanthropic  zeal,  as  we  have  seen,  is  rare,  especially  in  the 
South,  and  because  people  trust  the  beaten  paths  of  emigration, 
or  the  very  helpful  ticket  agent,  more  than  they  trust  the  govern- 
ment, particularly  when  they  suspect  that  it  wants  to  keep  them 
at  home.2  Upon  occasion,  the  Commissioner-General’s  advice, 
supplemented  by  advice  from  potent  independent  sources,  has 
had  conspicuous  effect,  as  when,  in  the  spring  of  1910,  wide 
publicity  was  given  to  an  extensive  building  trades  lockout  in 
Germany. 

Every  ship  authorized  to  carry  emigrants  must  have  on  board  a 
military  doctor  who  must  both  see  to  the  maintenance  of  sanitary 
standards  and  treat  disease.  On  the  outward  journey  such  a 
policy  is  primarily  aimed  at  the  protection  of  the  emigrants  them- 
selves; on  the  return,  it  is  largely  concerned  with  safeguarding 
the  health  of  the  Italian  people.  The  annual  reports  of  these 
physicians  have  not  shown  any  material  decline  in  the  amount  of 
sickness  on  board  ship.3 

1 See  a report  by  Cabrini  to  a trade-union  congress  in  Paris,  Boll.  Emig.,  1916, 
No.  6,  pp.  72-75. 

2 Rossi’s  report  “ Vantaggi  e danni  ” was  the  fruit  of  an  attempt  to  discover  why 
the  committees  did  not  work  well.  Cf.  also  Boll.  Emig.,  1905,  No.  14,  pp.  28  f. 

3 Besides  the  reports  themselves  see  further,  E.  Fossataro,  “ II  servizio  igienico  e 


OPINION  AND  POLICY  IN  ITALY 


481 


An  extensive  personnel  watches  over  the  emigrants  abroad. 
Besides  certain  travelling  inspectors  and  travelling  commissioners 
who  study  the  welfare  of  the  emigrants  from  many  points  of  view 
— we  have  had  to  cite  their  testimony  time  and  again  in  this 
book  — the  entire  diplomatic  and  consular  staff  is  utilized.  As  a 
class,  the  consuls  are  certainly  not  above  the  average  of  those  of 
other  great  countries,  their  jurisdictions  are  often  of  enormous 
extent  and  perforce  scantily  visited  by  them,  and  their  manifold 
duties  may  leave  little  room  for  general  helpfulness.  Yet  com- 
petent men  have  shone  among  them.  One  of  their  powers  is  that 
of  engaging  legal  aid  in  the  interest  of  the  emigrants  — most  com- 
monly to  collect  indemnities  for  accidents  — and  they  are  sup- 
plied with  funds  for  the  repatriation  of  the  indigent.1  In  1908,  a 
special  fund  of  10,000  lire  was  put  at  the  disposal  of  the  consul 
at  Panama  to  enable  the  return  of  idle  Italians  there,  and  in  1914, 
we  have  seen,  official  repatriation  from  the  countries  of  Europe 
assumed  a prodigious  character.2  In  1905,  the  Commissioner- 
General,  upon  recommendation  of  the  Emigration  Council, 
appointed  two  emigration  attaches  ( addetti ) for  the  industrial 
region  in  West  Germany,  and  one  for  Switzerland.  These  depend 
upon  the  consulates  and  give  their  entire  time  to  watching  over 
and  helping  the  emigrants  — studying  the  labor  market,  visiting 
workplaces,  advising  when  there  are  strikes,  helping  to  secure 
accident  indemnities.  Although  the  attaches  have  functioned 
well,  they  have  never  been  introduced  in  the  transatlantic  coun- 
tries, not  because  there  would  be  no  scope  for  their  activity  but 
because,  as  Baron  Tittoni  once  put  it,  addressing  the  Senate,  “ the 
people  of  the  United  States  will  look  on  us  with  suspicion,”  not 
understanding  why  consuls  are  not  sufficient.3 

Appropriations  of  money  are  made  for  many  purposes  besides 
publication  and  the  salaries  of  such  officials  as  have  been  named 

sanitario  sui  piroscafi  da  emigranti,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1909,  No.  17,  pp.  11-23,  and  G. 
Mortara,  “ Emigrazione  e sanita  pubblica,”  Giornale  degli  Economisti,  January, 
1913,  PP-  39-45- 

1 In  this  connection  see  a report  to  the  Emigration  Council,  “ Organizzazione  del 
servizio  legale  nel  nord-America,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1914,  No.  2,  pp.  88-161. 

2 Read  the  vivid  account,  for  example,  of  T.  Tittoni,  “ Assistenza  degli  emigranti 
in  Francia  nei  primi  mesi  della  guerra  del  1914,”  Boll.  Emig.,  19x5,  No.  1,  pp.  7-20. 

3 Italy's  Foreign  and  Colonial  Policy,  p.  165. 


482 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


and  their  expenses.  Exhibitions  have  been  aided  both  in  Italy 
and  abroad,  when  they  might  help  toward  a better  understanding 
of  the  emigrants  or  lessen  prejudices.  Employment  bureaus  have 
been  established,  less  to  assist  individuals  than  to  enable  the 
movements  of  masses,  but  so  far  their  accomplishment  has  been 
small.  In  various  parts  of  the  world,  and  with  telling  effect,  Ital- 
ian hospitals  have  been  subsidized.  Requests  for  loans  or  for 
guarantee  of  interest  in  aid  of  colonization  companies  have 
hitherto  failed  of  approval  by  the  Emigration  Council.  In  aid  of 
schools  very  considerable  appropriations  have  been  made,  “ one 
of  the  most  powerful  means  . . .”  said  Baron  Tittoni,  the  father 
of  important  legislation  in  the  matter,  “ of  maintaining  alive  and 
propagating  ever  more  the  language,  the  ideas  and  civilization  of 
Italy  in  other  States,  of  affirming  her  political  and  moral  influence 
which  should  open  the  way  to  her  commerce.”  1 In  the  countries 
about  the  Mediterranean  the  schools  have  been  entirely  main- 
tained by  the  Italian  Government;  in  North  and  South  America 
they  have  only  been  subsidized;  in  South  America  alone  they 
have  numbered  several  hundred.  Into  the  rural  parts  of  Brazil 
“ teacher  agents  ” have  been  sent,  men  who  besides  instructing 
pupils  perform  certain  of  the  functions  of  consuls.  Finally,  philan- 
thropic societies  of  many  sorts,  engaged  in  the  assistance  of  emi- 
grants, have  been  given  large  subsidies.  But  these  organizations 
— not  all  are  subsidized  — are  of  such  independent  importance 
that  a separate  description  of  their  work  is  necessary. 

One  of  them  is  the  Societa  Umanitaria,  or  Humanitarian 
Society,  with  headquarters  at  Milan.  The  subsidy  it  receives  is 
small  compared  with  its  income  from  the  munificent  bequest  of 
its  Hebraic  founder.  Venturesome,  willing  to  experiment,  ma- 
turing its  plans  well,  it  has  in  no  department  of  its  activity 
performed  a more  admirable  work  than  in  its  Emigration  Office. 
Quite  independent  beginnings  had  been  made  in  the  organization 
of  “ emigration  secretariates,”  representing  local  labor  interests  in 
the  great  reservoir  regions  of  temporary  emigration.  The  demo- 
cratic character  of  these,  and  their  large  possibilities  of  action,  the 
Society  was  quick  to  recognize,  and  it  has  steadily  worked  to 

1 Italy’s  Foreign  and  Colonial  Policy,  p.  200;  cf.  p.  203. 


OPINION  AND  POLICY  IN  ITALY 


483 

introduce  higher  standards  into  their  activity,  and  to  bring  still 
other  secretariates  into  existence.  Their  stated  objects  are  to 
provide  legal  aid  for  emigrants  when  the  labor  contract  and  social 
legislation  are  in  question;  to  advise  concerning  working  condi- 
tions, in  general  and  at  the  moment,  in  the  countries  of  emigra- 
tion; to  take  the  initiative  in  securing  special  schools  or  training 
for  persons  about  to  emigrate;  to  provide  an  employment  bureau 
service,  utilizing  the  devices  instituted  by  the  Commissioner- 
General;  to  maintain  a live  relationship  with  the  latter’s  office 
and  all  other  protective  organizations.  These  are  also  the  objects 
of  the  Emigration  Office  of  the  Society  itself.  The  secretariates, 
of  which  some  two-thirds  (the  older  established)  are  in  the  North, 
receive  financial  support  from  the  Umanitaria,  the  Commissioner- 
General,  the  interested  communes,  the  provinces  and  sundry 
credit  institutes,  besides  the  emigrants  themselves.  Some  forty 
of  fifty  existed  at  the  outbreak  of  the  European  war  and  there 
were  also  correspondent  secretariates  outside  of  Italy.  Chiefly 
on  the  Society’s  initiative,  they  have  held  congresses;  and  their 
affairs  are  currently  reported  in  the  national  Bollettino  dell ’ U fficio 
del  Lavoro. 

The  Society  has  also  set  up  frontier  stations  for  the  assistance 
of  emigrants.  It  had  long  urged  the  provision  of  courses  of  train- 
ing in  the  major  centers  of  emigration  to  fit  men  industrially  and 
otherwise  for  emigration,  and  it  has  beheld  the  fruition  of  its 
efforts.  Indeed  it  has  itself  instituted  training  schools  for  teachers 
of  such  courses  and  for  the  officials  of  secretariates;  and  as  I write 
I have  before  me  a carefully  compiled  pamphlet  programme  for 
the  instruction  of  masons.1  Several  editions  have  been  published 
of  a Calendario  per  gli  emigranti,  which  are  at  once  guides,  in 
separable  parts,  for  continental  and  for  transoceanic  emigrants. 
And  every  week  an  issue  appears  of  C orris pondenza  dell’  Ufficio 
Centrale  di  Emigrazione,  a journal  intended  primarily  for  the 
secretariates  but  also  abundantly  clipped,  as  it  happens,  by  the 
local  newspapers;  in  1917  it  published  valuable  fists  of  refugees.2 

1 Societa  Umanitaria,  Progr  amnia  per  cor  si  d’insegnamento  a favor  e di  operai 
muratori  nei  centri  d’ emigrazione,  Varese,  1912. 

2 The  U manitaria  issues  annual  reports  and  many  special  publications,  the  latter 
including,  for  example,  the  reports  of  the  Consorzio  per  la  Difesa  dell’  Emigrazione 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


484 

For  many  years  more  extensive  in  its  ramifications  than  the 
Humanitarian  Society,  yet  now  somewhat  overtaken  by  this  ac- 
knowledged rival,  is  the  Opera  di  Assistenza  agli  Operai  Italiani 
Emigrati  in  Europa  e nel  Levante,  founded  by  the  late  Bishop 
Bonomelli,  and  enjoying  a subvention  from  the  Commissioner- 
General.  Avowedly  religious  in  its  general  character,  it  has  aimed 
at  the  manifold  protection  of  emigrants.  At  such  main  sluices  for 
the  continental  currents  as  Chiasso  and  Domodossola,  it  has  pro- 
vided night  abodes,  cheap  kitchens,  and  other  aids.  It  acquaints 
men  with  the  condition  of  the  labor  market  and  with  the  best 
routes  of  travel.  In  France,  Germany,  Switzerland,  and  Austria 
it  has  maintained  secretariates,  and  sometimes,  in  connection 
with  them,  schools  for  women  and  children,  cooking  classes, 
savings  banks,  circulating  libraries,  and  the  like.1 

What  the  Opera  Bonomelli  has  been  for  the  Italians  in  the 
countries  of  Europe,  that,  in  a minor  sense,  the  Italica  Gens  has 
been,  or  has  aspired  to  be,  for  the  Italians  overseas.  An  out- 
growth of  a missionary  organization  associated  with  the  name  of 
the  ardent  and  enterprising  Scalabrini,  its  headquarters  in  Turin, 
it  has  invited  Italian  priests  everywhere  to  enter  its  membership. 
While  it  seeks  to  give  help  of  many  sorts  in  entirely  secular  mat- 
ters, its  principal  aims  are  moral,  to  be  furthered  by  church  and 
school.  “ It  is  beyond  a doubt,”  said  the  first  number  of  its 
monthly  Bollettino  (February,  1910),  “ that  the  chief  course  of 
action  to  follow  is  moral,  the  development  of  the  latent  intel- 
lectual energies  of  our  emigrants  in  order  to  make  them  efficient 
citizens  and  rouse  in  them  the  national  spirit  again,  “ we  have 
put  among  the  first  of  our  aims  the  conservation  of  the  national 
sentiment.”  It  has  sought  to  further  compact  collectivities,  in 
city  and  agricultural  colony,  and  the  number  of  parishes  and 

Temporanea  in  Europa  (which  it  has  absorbed).  The  Director  of  the  Emigration 
Office,  A.  Cabrini,  has  published  widely.  The  interest  roused  by  the  U manitaria  in 
neighboring  countries  is  exemplified  by  occasional  reports  in  the  Correspondenzblatt 
der  Generalkommission  der  Gewerkschaften  Deutschlands. 

1 The  Boll.  Emig.  has  many  accounts  of  the  Opera's  activities,  but  see  also  Opera 
di  Assistenza  agli  Operai  Italiani  Emigrati  in  Europa:  Primo  Congresso  Italian a del V 
Assistenza  all’  Emigrazione  Continentale,  Milano,  Maggio  1913,  Relazioni  (Milan, 
1913),  and  Rendiconti  delle  sedate  (Milan,  1914). 


OPINION  AND  POLICY  IN  ITALY  485 

priests  now  comprised  in  its  organization  is  large,  in  both  North 
and  South  America.1 

Here  general  mention  should  be  made  of  the  numberless  inde- 
pendent societies  of  many  sorts  existing  in  the  emigrant  com- 
munities and  mainly  original  there.  “ Whatever  their  individual 
aims,”  an  official  summary  concluded  some  years  ago,  “ it  is  com- 
forting for  us  to  note  that  they  always  and  everywhere  exert  a 
commendable  action,  since  they  have  inestimable  value  as  factors 
of  civilization  and  progress  and  admirably  serve  to  tighten  the 
bonds  between  those  who  compose  the  colonies,  and  between  the 
colonies  and  the  mother  country.”  2 Some  societies,  for  specific 
aids  to  emigrants,  secure  subsidies  from  the  Commissioner- 
General.  Some  have  founded  hospitals,  many  have  maintained 
schools.  They  have  gathered  funds  for  the  relief  of  the  victims 
of  disasters  in  Italy,  have  managed  patriotic  celebrations,  have 
entertained  distinguished  guests,  and  in  the  Great  War  have  in 
endless  ways  served  their  country. 

One  among  these  many  societies,  its  headquarters  in  Rome,  its 
branches  in  all  countries  where  Italians  go,  deserves  a special 
word.  This  is  the  Dante  Alighieri , founded  in  1889  under  the 
presidency  of  R.  Bonghi,  and  subsequently  headed  by  P.  Villari, 
L.  Rava,  and  others.  It  has  aimed  to  avoid  every  partisan  char- 
acter, religious,  political  or  class,  and  has  sought  by  means  of 
annual  congresses  to  keep  fresh  and  efficient  its  instruments  for 
attaining  its  central  purpose,  that  of  protecting  and  disseminating 
the  language  and  culture  of  Italy.  At  home  it  has  kept  alive  in 
the  national  Parliament  the  question  of  schooling  the  Italians 
abroad.  In  France  it  has  established  some  institutions  of  charity; 
in  the  Levant,  North  Africa,  and  America  it  has  arranged  cele- 
brations, provided  lectures,  diffused  tracts,  and  set  up  libraries. 
Needless  to  add,  its  influence  has  been  generally  above  the  stra- 
tum of  the  unskilled  and  manual  labor  class. 

1 See  a volume  Net  XXV  anniversario  dell’  istituto  del  missionari  di  S.  Carlo  per 
gli  italiani  emigrati  fondato  da  Mons.  Giovanni  Ball.  Scalabrini,  1887-1912,  Rome, 
1912.  The  studies  of  Venerosi  Pesciolini  in  Brazil  were  made  under  the  auspices  of 
Italica  Gens. 

2 “ Le  societa  italiane  all’  estero  nel  1908,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1908,  No.  24,  p.  v. 


486  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

Still  other  organizations  seeking  to  secure  the  welfare  of  the 
emigrants  have  risen  or  flourished  in  this  Second  Period  in  the  his- 
tory of  Italian  opinion.  But  either  they  have  been  born  in  the 
latest  years,  or  what  is  most  characteristic  in  their  work  has  de- 
veloped subsequently,  and  therefore  they  are  best  considered 
with  the  Third  Period. 

The  Third  Period:  since  about  1908 

How  the  emigration  question  was  somewhat  forcibly  drawn  out 
from  placid  waters  into  the  tumult  and  stress  of  a particularly 
tumultuous  epoch  of  politics  makes  the  dramatic  theme  next  to  be 
unfolded.  The  faithful  historian  must  confess  that  the  period 
contains  nothing  which  could  not  be  found,  in  germ  at  least,  in  the 
previous  periods.  But  these  recent  years  have  taken  what  earlier 
seemed  insignificant  or  inert  and  have  painted  a canvas  of  large 
figures  in  action.  While  such  a policy  of  protection  as  had  been 
evolved  in  our  Second  Period  could  be  so  carried  out  as  not  to 
startle  or  harm  other  peoples,  the  policies  in  question  in  this  Third 
Period  were  calculated  to  touch  very  deeply  the  interests  and 
desires  of  other  nations.  It  is  entirely  possible,  if  one  wishes,  to 
minimize  and  gloss  over  the  international  character  of  emigration; 
but  in  the  recent  period  it  is  precisely  that  character  which  men 
have  chosen  to  make  the  basis  of  their  action. 

The  new  attitude  is  related  to  the  striking  revival  of  imperialism 
in  Italy.  It  is  also  bound  up  with  the  development  of  a conception 
of  Italian  citizenship.  Only  when  these  two  are  understood  — 
and  I will  deal  with  the  question  of  citizenship  first  — wall  the 
special  drift  of  the  emigration  argument  be  plain. 

The  new  view  of  citizenship  rests  upon  the  fact,  now  familiar  to 
readers  of  this  book,  that  the  Italian  who  goes  abroad  expects 
some  day  to  return,  changes  little  in  his  new  environment,  and 
often  does  return.  It  renders  affection  in  return  for  affection  and 
desires  that  the  emigrants  should  rear  the  edifice  of  a Greater 
Italy.  It  is  particularly  unwilling  that  they  should  be  lost  to  the 
country  whose  traditions  they  have  shared  in  common  — as  un- 
willing:, one  sometimes  infers,  as  Northerners  of  the  United  States 


OPINION  AND  POLICY  IN  ITALY 


487 

were  to  allow  the  South  to  secede  in  i860.  “ May  they  and  their 
children  never  forget  Italy ! ” exclaimed  Pantano  in  a report  to 
Parliament  as  long  ago  as  1904,  “ This  is  our  aspiration,  this  must 
guide  our  every  action.”  1 The  best  emigration  then  is  that  which 
is  undisguisedly  temporary.2  But  the  hand  of  Italy  would  keep 
its  hold  on  those  also  who  seem  to  abide  permanently  abroad,  and 
on  Iheir  children.  De  Zettiry’s  Manual , an  official  gift  to  emi- 
grants to  Argentina,  pointing  out  the  duties  of  sons  when  they 
reach  the  age  of  seventeen,  has  these  words: 

Perhaps  you  have  taken  children  with  you  to  your  new  home;  others  may 
have  been  born  to  you  there.  Our  country,  Italy,  regards  all  these  your 
children  as  its  subjects.  This  mode  of  conceiving  nationality,  which  more- 
over is  common  to  all  civilized  nations,  will  some  day  come  in  conflict  with 
the  laws  of  the  country  where  you  reside.  But  do  not  let  that  trouble  you : 
the  two  governments  will  amicably  settle  each  instance  as  it  arises. 

This  occurs  especially  in  regard  to  the  obligation  of  military  service.  . . . 

Educate  and  bring  up  your  children  in  manly  ways,  see  to  it  that  they  be 
courageous,  broken  to  the  great  discomforts  of  life  and  of  toil,  respectful  of 
the  constituted  order  and  if  you  can,  also  good  horsemen  and  able  marks- 
men. . . . 

Further:  But  this  reconciliation  of  conflicting  duties  will  be  neither  easy 
nor  complete,  unless  you  shall  have  taught  your  children,  along  with  a full 
and  sincere  affection  for  the  Argentine  country,  a similar  affection  for  the 
country  overseas.  Therefore  speak  to  them  often  of  the  dear  and  beautiful 
Italy  which  cradled  you,  of  its  struggles,  of  its  triumphs,  of  its  glories,  of  its 
great  destiny,  and  having  done  so  you  will  have  educated  them  to  that  very 
devotion  to  a noble  patriotism  which  today  makes  Argentina  proud  of  the 
sons  of  her  brave  colonists.3 

Sometimes  the  suggestion  has  been  made  that  Italy  should 
allow  her  emigrants  abroad  to  vote,  at  the  consuls’  offices,  in  the 
national  elections,  but  it  has  never  won  substantial  adherence.4 

1 “ Relazione  della  Commissione  Parlamentare  di  Vigilanza  sul  Fondo  per 
1’Emigrazione,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1904,  No.  n,  p.  119;  cf.  p.  123. 

2 Cf.  the  words  of  the  Commissioner-General,  Boll.  Emig.,  1910,  No.  18,  p.  157. 
A similar  conclusion,  with  a somewhat  different  argument  is  that  of  the  Final  Re- 
port of  the  Inch.  Pari.,  viii,  pp.  96  f. 

3 De  Zettiry,  pp.  r83~r87. 

4 Yet  see  A.  Cabrini,  Manualetto  per  I’emigranle  in  Europa  (Milan,  1910),  pp. 
33  f.,  and  a parliamentary  discussion  reproduced  in  Rivista  di  Emigrazione,  July- 
August,  rpr2,  pp.  245-253.  More  than  twenty  years  earlier,  Italians  in  Montevideo 
made  proposals  that  they  (and  their  compatriots  everywhere)  be  allowed  to  elect 
representatives  in  Parliament  to  be  styled  “ colonial  deputies”;  Saldias,  p.  44. 


488 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


Frequently  the  emigrants  are  urged  to  refrain  from  naturalization 
abroad;  or  satisfaction  is  taken  in  the  circumstance  that  they 
commonly  do  refrain.  Indeed  the  whole  structure  of  protection, 
mainly  reared  in  what  I have  called  the  Second  Period,  exists 
largely  in  order  that  the  national  traits  and  the  loyalty  of  the 
emigrants  may  be  strengthened  rather  than  suffered  to  decline.1 
As  if  in  sheer  contradiction  of  this  view,  emigrants  are  sometimes 
urged  to  become  naturalized.  But  the  reasons  therefor  destroy 
the  force  of  the  contradiction:  for  it  is  not  so  that  the  new  cit- 
izens may  whole-heartedly  serve  their  new  commonwealth.  “ We 
ought  to  instruct,  to  organize  these  phalanxes  of  laborers,”  said 
Sig.  Nitti  in  Parliament,  June  21, 1905. 

It  is  a thing  that  the  officials  of  the  State  can  not  and  ought  not  to  do,  but 
private  agencies  can  accomplish  it  easily.  To  us  it  matters  not  that  our 
fellow  citizens  should  be  for  this  or  that  party,  it  interests  us  only  that  they 
should  be  a real  and  live  force,  and  that  their  aid  should  be  sought  and  they 
should  not  dwell  always  as  strangers  in  the  land  that  fosters  them.  If  I may 
say  so,  we  ought  at  one  and  the  same  time  to  develop  in  them  the  national 
culture  and  love  of  Italy,  and  to  confer  on  them  the  political  power  they  now 
lack.2 

The  agitation  for  some  form  of  double  citizenship  had  its  begin- 
nings in  the  previous  century,  but  did  not  acquire  force  until  the 
first  years  of  the  Third  Period.  Then  Minister  Scialoja  recom- 
mended that  Italian  nationality  be  suspended,  not  lost,  by  Ital- 
ians naturalized  abroad,  and  restored  to  validity  (save  where  a 
contrary  desire  is  declared)  by  the  fact  of  return  to  Italy;  quite 
as  cohabitation  annuls  the  legal  consequences  of  separation. 
Senator  De  Martino,  the  president  of  the  Colonial  Institute,  other 
members  of  Parliament,  and  many  journalists  urged  some  such 
measure.  Enrico  Ferri,  back  from  Argentina,  told  his  attentive 
listeners  in  the  Chamber: 

1 Cf.  the  words  of  a deputy,  R.  Murri,  “ We  assist  the  emigrants,  not  so  that  they 
may  become  good  New  Yorkers  or  good  citizens  of  the  Port,  but  so  that,  at  New 
York  or  in  Buenos  Aires,  they  may  continue  to  be,  just  as  far  as  is  possible,  good 
Italians,”  in  his  article,  “ Gl’  italiani  nell’  America  Latina  — impressioni  di  viaggio,” 
Nuova  Antologia,  April  i,  1913,  P-  44°- 

2 Boll.  Emig.,  1905,  No.  1 5,  p.  53.  Such  a course,  Nitti  believes,  would  leave  them 
not  the  less  good  Italians  after  their  return  to  Italy.  The  view  in  general  is  a very 
common  one.  On  its  prevalence  as  regards  Argentina,  see  A.  Franzoni,  “ Italia  ed 
Argentina,”  Rivista  Coloniale,  November  25-December  10,  1910,  p.  408. 


OPINION  AND  POLICY  IN  ITALY 


489 


I said  to  the  Italians  down  there:  If  Italy  passed  a law  amending  our 
Civil  Code  in  such  a way  that  when  an  Italian  citizen  accepted  foreign 
citizenship  he  could  reacquire  Italian  citizenship  by  merely  reentering  Italy 
with  the  intention  of  ending  his  . days  there,  would  the  difficulties  be  re- 
moved ? Would  you  be  content  ? Yes,  they  replied,  for  we  should  no  longer 
be  considered  renegades,  we  should  be  citizens  of  Argentina  or  of  Brazil  but, 
reentering  Italy,  Italian  citizens  once  more.1 

And  the  Final  Report  of  the  Parliamentary  Inquiry  into  the  Con- 
dition of  the  Southern  Contadini  held: 

Most  frequently  the  new  citizenship  is  asked  for  by  the  emigrant  under 
pressure  of  necessity  or  economic  advantage,  to  the  end  that  his  status  before 
the  law  may  not  be  inferior  to  that  of  native  born  or  naturalized.  Such  an 
act  on  his  part,  however  voluntary,  today  involves  the  loss  of  his  original 
nationality  and  this  thought  weakens  in  him  his  affection  for  his  native 
land.  . . . When  the  emigrant  shall  be  able  to  say:  “ I am  an  Argentine  in 
Argentina  but  an  Italian  in  Italy  and  I always  retain  my  place  in  the  ranks 
of  the  regiment  to  which  I was  assigned,”  then  he  will  be  proud  of  a country 
which  does  not  disown  him  and  he  will  love  it  because  he  will  feel  himself  to 
be  loved.2 

The  situation  came  to  a head  in  1912.  A bill  for  the  amendment 
of  the  law  of  citizenship,  in  essentials  unamended  since  1863,  was 
introduced  into  Parliament.  In  the  discussion,  double  citizenship 
was  not  seriously  pressed  for;  it  seemed  too  visionary.  On  at 
least  two  previous  occasions  the  Italian  Government  had  opened 
negotiations  with  the  United  States  and  Argentina,  but  they  had 
failed  to  lead  to  the  adoption  of  any  fixed  rules.  Duarum  cimtatum 
civis  esse  nemo  potest  — the  new  legislators  could  find  no  way  out 
of  an  old  Ciceronian  dilemma.  They  put  the  case  also  in  bio- 
logical terms : a cell  cannot  be  a member  of  two  organisms.  And 
they  reflected  that  the  naturalization  law  of  the  United  States 
requires  the  renunciation  of  previous  allegiance,  and  noted  that 

1 Session  of  June  22,  1909.  Boll.  Emig.,  1909,  No.  12,  p.  23. 

2 Inch.  Pari.,  viii,  pp.  97  f.  On  double  citizenship  see  various  addresses  before  the 
first  and  second  Congressi  degli  Italiani  all’  Estero;  N.  Samama,  Contribute  alio 
studio  della  doppia  ciltadinanza  nei  riguardi  del  movimento  migratorio,  Rome,  1910; 
M.  Vianello-Chiodo,  La  ciltadinanza  del  nostro  emigrato,  Rome,  1910;  G.  C.  Buz- 
zatti,  “ L’ltalia,  l’America  Latina  e la  doppia  nazionalita,”  Rivista  Coloniale, 
January- February,  1908,  pp.  3-21,  and  idem,  “ La  doppia  cittadinanza  studiata 
nei  rapporti  fra  l’ltalia  e la  Repubblica  Argentina,”  Rivista  Coloniale,  July- August, 
1908,  pp.  547-575- 


490 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


general  opinion  in  the  United  States  favors  naturalization  of  im- 
migrants. It  was  recognized  that  one  sort  of  double  citizenship 
already  exists,  but  pathologically  only,  by  a conflict  of  laws.  This 
very  conflict,  however,  such  as  it  was,  they  now  reenacted.  Hold- 
ing that  those  shall  lose  their  Italian  citizenship  who  sponta- 
neously acquire  a foreign  citizenship,  or  who  have  established  their 
residence  abroad  (the  Government  may  dispense  with  this  rule) 
or  who  accept  military  or  other  employment  with  a foreign  state, 
Article  8 of  the  law  of  June  13,  1912,  declares  that  such  loss  of 
citizenship  shall  not  exempt  them  from  the  duties  of  military 
service.  Would  not  any  other  rule  have  opened  a wdde  gate  to 
an  exodus  of  Italian  citizens  ? But  consider  the  new  measure 
further.  Article  7 holds,  as  the  previous  law  had  done,  that  the 
foreign-born  son  of  an  Italian,  even  though  claimed  by  the  foreign 
country  (as  in  the  Americas),  shall  be  deemed  an  Italian  citizen, 
but  on  attaining  his  majority  or  civil  rights  he  may  renounce  his 
Italian  allegiance.  Most  of  all,  however,  it  is  Article  9 that  com- 
mands our  interest.  This  provides  the  way  to  an  easy  reassump- 
tion of  Italian  citizenship,  in  its  main  lines  enacting  a proposal 
made  three  years  earlier  by  Tittoni.  Those,  it  holds,  who,  by  the 
provisions  of  Articles  7 and  8,  have  lost  their  citizenship  may 
reacquire  it  (a)  by  rendering  military  service  to  Italy  or  accept- 
ing government  employment,  (b)  by  renouncing  foreign  citizen- 
ship or  foreign  military  employment  and  taking  up  a residence  in 
Italy,  or  (c)  by  residing  for  two  years  in  Italy,  provided  loss  of 
citizenship  was  due  to  acquisition  of  foreign  citizenship,  or  even, 
by  permission,  by  residing  two  years  in  another  country  and  not 
there  assuming  citizenship.  Let  me  only  add  that  Article  13 
declares  that  there  shall  be  no  taxes  or  costs  for  the  acquisition  or 
reacquisition  of  citizenship. 

Here,  then,  is  a law  enacted  at  the  very  apogee  of  the  emigra- 
tion movement,  with  the  aim,  not  of  establishing  double  citizen- 
ship, but  yet  of  facilitating  the  rapid  resumption  of  citizenship  by 
repatriated  emigrants.  It  assumes,  what  doubtless  is  true,  that 
there  must  be  many  emigrants  whose  naturalization  in  other 
countries  is  primarily  for  personal  convenience,  and  not  the  sign 
of  a new  allegiance  of  the  heart.  It  does  not  desire  to  discourage 


OPINION  AND  POLICY  IN  ITALY  49 1 

such  naturalization  and  it  does  encourage  the  wandering  children 
of  Italy  to  return  to  the  mother.1 

Italian  imperialism  has  had  its  inspiration  in  much  more  than 
the  example  of  other  nations.  In  a country  which  had  been  the 
center  of  the  Ancient  World,  its  colonies  scattered  far  and  wide, 
and  which  in  a later  time  could  “ hold  the  gorgeous  East  in  fee,” 
dreamers  were  bound  to  arise  who  would  demand  a revival  of  such 
greatness.  The  stones  of  Rome  and  the  stones  of  Venice  were 
alike  eloquent.  So  Mazzini,  while  yet  modern  Italy  seemed  only 
a radiant  hope,  foresaw  a great  Mediterranean  role  for  his  coun- 
try, the  mistress-to-be,  he  pictured,  of  Tunisia  and  Tripoli.  C. 
Negri  in  1863  portrayed  the  Argentine  as  an  Italian  Australia.  The 
purchase  of  Assab  in  1870  was  the  modest  beginning  of  an  attempt 
to  bring  the  vision  to  earth.  Preachers  of  colonial  expansion 
became  more  numerous,  the  voices  of  such  men  as  C.  Correnti, 
A.  Amati,  L.  Carpi,  being  heard.  Soon  after  the  occupation 
of  Rome,  Carpi,  the  first  student  of  his  countrymen’s  peregrina- 
tions, wrote  that,  in  order  to  derive  the  full  benefit  from  her 
emigration,  Italy  should  have  true  colonies  overseas.2  A major 
hope  was  blasted  when  the  French  seized  Tunisia.  But  the  dream 
went  its  way,  becoming  grander  and  more  vivid.  Crispi  de- 
lineated a great  African  empire,  not  unmindful  however  of  the 
Mediterranean  coasts  as  well.  Hearts  beat  faster  when  Abys- 
sinia was  invaded,  but  a terrible  reversal  to  the  Italian  arms 
scattered  the  dream’s  fabric  and  left  blank  disillusionment  in  its 
stead.  Crispi  fell  and  the  di  Rudini  cabinet  began  to  renounce. 
Italian  imperialism  had  come  too  late.  Benadir,  Eritrea,  these 
wastes  must  content  the  ambitious. 

Meanwhile,  after  Adowa,  the  great  current  of  human  emigra- 
tion became  ever  thicker.  A non-political  empire  was  being 
founded.  Could  not  Italy  be  proud  of  her  colonies  sans  drapeau  ? 
There  were  even  those,  however,  like  Professor  Grossi,  who  felt 
that  the  proper  way  of  dealing  with  such  colonies  would  in  time 

1 The  speeches  and  reports  on  the  new  law  make  interesting,  if  lengthy,  reading. 
They  are  reproduced  in  Boll.  Etnig.,  1913,  No.  3,  pp.  13-222. 

2 Op.  cit.,  i,  p.  64. 


492 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


enable  the  Italian  nation  to  spread  its  civilization  and  its  language 
over  two  continents.1 

Although  the  incumbents  of  the  newly  established  office  of 
Commissioner-General  of  Emigration  were  undoubtedly  enter- 
prising and  from  the  first  gave  free  rein  to  the  desire  to  espy  in  any 
continent  new  habitations  for  Italian  emigrants  — the  Congo, 
Australia,  Chili,  what  not  — yet  they  lacked  the  freedom  which 
a private  organization  might  have.  In  1906,  to  fill  a need,  the 
Istituto  Coloniale  was  founded,  presently  to  be  subsidized  by  the 
Government.  “ Its  aim  is  to  further  and  develop  Italian  colonial 
action,  whether  public  or  private,  to  make  studies  and  researches 
abroad,  to  constitute  itself  a permanent  bond  between  the  mother 
country  and  the  compatriots  who  live  abroad,  and  to  represent 
collective  interests.”  Its  membership  has  included  the  officials  of 
government  and  of  the  great  non-governmental  associations.  Its 
organ,  the  Rivista  Coloniale,  has  been  given  over,  in  about  equal 
parts,  to  the  discussion  of  colonial  and  of  emigration  problems,  all 
from  the  point  of  view  of  creating  a stronger,  more  influential 
Italy,  taking  a lead,  for  instance,  in  the  discussion  of  double 
citizenship.  To  the  Foreign  Affairs  Office  the  Institute  has  been 
of  great  service  in  providing  new,  non-official,  sources  of  colonial 
information.  When  disaster  came  to  Calabria  and  Sicily  by 
earthquake,  it  at  once  sent  appeals  to  all  Italian  collectivities, 
asking  for  help.  It  arranged  a visit  of  young  Turks  to  Italy  and  a 
centennial  celebration,  in  Italy,  of  Argentine  independence,  and 
it  sought  to  federate  the  various  Italian  societies  in  the  United 
States.  But  its  principal  achievement  has  been  its  organization 
of  two  impressive  emigrant  congresses.  To  the  first  of  these,  held 
in  Rome  in  October,  1908,  the  delegates  who  came  from  European 
countries  numbered  no,  those  from  America  107,  those  from 
Africa  36.  It  revealed,  as  the  president  of  the  Institute  later  said, 
material  and  moral  energies  till  then  unsuspected  in  Italy.  The 
discussion  turned  upon  such  questions  as  citizenship,  schools, 
trade.  It  was  voted  that  the  Government  be  recommended 
greatly  to  increase  the  subsidies  to  schools  abroad,  that  measures 

1 V.  Grossi,  “ L’insegnamento  coloniale  in  Italia  e nei  principali  paesi  d’Eu- 
ropa,”  LTtalia  Coloniale,  November,  1901,  pp.  37-52,  December,  pp.  48-84. 


OPINION  AND  POLICY  IN  ITALY 


493 


be  taken  to  promote  the  unity  and  harmony  of  the  Italians  in  the 
foreign  settlements,  and  that  the  Government  be  asked  to  call  an 
international  conference  on  emigration.  The  delegates  visited 
the  monuments  and  attended  a performance  of  d’Annunzio’s 
irredentist  play,  La  Nave.  In  1911,  in  connection  with  the  semi- 
centennial celebration  of  the  birth  of  Italian  freedom,  the  second 
congress  assembled,  a fit  symbol  of  the  Greater  Italy  that  had 
come  to  pass.  Its  thronging  delegates  again  discussed  such  mat- 
ters as  double  citizenship,  the  protection  of  emigrants,  trade, 
culture;  and  the  votes  passed  either  reaffirmed  those  of  the  first 
congress  or  called  for  still  more  extensive  action.  The  resolution, 
for  example,  which  followed  the  debate  on  double  citizenship 
anticipated  the  most  important  provisions  of  the  law  enacted  in 
the  next  year.1 

The  successful  launching  of  the  Colonial  Institute  was  only  one 
sign  — and  the  less  important  of  two  — that  time  was  healing  the 
Abyssinian  wound.  A new  generation  was  coming  to  manhood, 
keen  of  vision,  fresh  in  hope,  bold  and  urgent.  When  some  of  its 
more  alert  representatives  became  conscious  that  their  thoughts 
had  a common  drift,  they  called  a congress  for  December,  1910, 
which,  all  but  unnoticed  at  the  time,  can  never  be  forgotten. 
Dubbing  themselves  “ Nationalists,”  they  held  that  Italy  must 
be  roused  from  her  servility  and  apathy;  that  only  war,  a glorious 
source  of  greatness,  can  rouse  her;  that  her  rulers  must  be  firm 
imperialists,  bold  in  their  foreign  policy,  prepared  to  strike;  that 
a main  object  of  war  must  be  to  provide  lands  whither  emigrants 
might  go.  Not  a regional  life,  but  a collective  national  soul,  was 
the  need  of  Italy,  as  Scipio  Sighele,  the  philosopher  of  the  move- 
ment, put  it.  And  Sighele  also  declared  that  the  doctrine  first 
took  form  as  a reaction  against  the  Austrian  seizure  of  Bosnia- 
Herzegovina;  but  anti-Austrianism  soon  became  a submerged 
issue.  After  the  congress,  committees  were  appointed  all  over 
Italy  and  a propagandist  journal,  L’Idea  Nazionale,  began  to  be 

1 Istituto  Coloniale  Italiano,  Atli  del  Primo  Congresso  degli  Italiani  all’  Ester o 
(oltobre  1908),  2 vols.,  Rome,  1910,  and  Atti  del  Secondo  . . . ( giugno  1911), 
2 vols.  in  4 parts,  Rome,  1912. 


494 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


published.  The  first  votaries  of  Nationalism,  despite  its  stress 
upon  war,  were  not  of  the  military  caste,  but  intellectuals,  largely 
literary  folk.1 

Not  unfairly  Enrico  Corradini,  the  novelist,  has  been  claimed 
to  be  the  founder  of  the  movement.  Certainly  he  was  its  chief 
propagandist  and  he  sets  forth  more  eloquently  than  any  other 
writer  the  connection  of  Nationalism  with  emigration.  Even  in 
his  novels,  the  doctrine  is  foreshadowed.  Buondelmonti,  for 
example,  tells  his  compatriots  in  Brazil,  as  he  is  about  to  depart 
to  fight  for  Italy,  that  he  seeks  to  make  a better  world  for  their 
kind: 

They  will  not  need  to  do  what  you  have  had  to  do,  to  emigrate  into  foreign 
lands,  equipped  only  with  brawn  and  patience,  but  they  will  be  free  to  choose 
lands  that  their  country  will  have  conquered.  Italy  will  then  not  be  only 
where  Italy  is  today,  but  it  will  be  wherever  there  are  Italians,  just  as  today 
England  is  wherever  the  English  are.  And  then  the  Italians  will  no  longer 
speak  the  language  of  their  masters,  but  will  speak  their  own  language.2 

Consider  however  his  frankly  political  writings.  In  a recent 
essay  he  says : 

Study  and  reflection  on  these  lines  led  me  in  1908  to  travel  among  the  Ital- 
ian colonies  in  South  America.  ...  I examined  into  the  labor  done  by 
them,  the  benefit  accruing  to  those  regions,  and  the  inadequate  reward  of 
the  hard-working  colonists.  I came  home  with  ideas  clean  contrary  to  the 
opinion  held  in  Italy  which  at  that  time  favored  emigration.  All  alike  had 
taken  a sort  of  pride  in  the  achievements  of  our  brethren  . . . oddly  enough, 
gloried  in  their  mission  to  cultivate  the  globe  while  others  reaped  the 
harvest.3 

In  another  work,  The  Will  of  Italy,  he  declares,  “Emigration 
is,  after  death  from  starvation,  the  worst  of  necessities.”  The 
“ detestable  optimism  ” in  which  it  is  viewed  must  be  destroyed. 
“ Italian  individuals  cannot  do  otherwise  than  emigrate,  and 

1 Sighele’s  chief  works  dealing  with  Nationalism  are  Pagine  nazionaliste,  Milan, 
1910,  and  II  nazionalismo  ed  i partili  politici,  Milan,  1911.  He  died  in  1913.  An 
admirable  objective  study  is  E.  Flori,  “ Nazionalismo  e individualismo,”  Rivista 
d’ltalia,  March,  1916,  pp.  309-350,  and  April,  1916,  pp.  502-536.  Cf.  P.  Romano, 
“ Nazionalismo  e valore  nazionale,”  in  the  same  journal,  December  15,  1914,  pp. 
781-803. 

2 La  patria  lontana  (Milan,  1910),  p.  255. 

3 “ Italy  from  Adowa  to  the  Great  War,”  Nineteenth  Century,  May,  1917,  p.  1017. 


OPINION  AND  POLICY  IN  ITALY 


495 


woe  to  them  if  they  should  be  prevented  from  emigrating ! But 
the  Italian  nation,  if  it  is  content  with  that  and  lauds  it,  is 
morally  base,  is  immoral,  and  the  limit  of  its  immorality  is  only 
marked  by  its  ignorance.”  Again,  “ Let  us  boast  of  the  fecundity 
of  our  women,  but  not  of  the  dispersion  of  their  children.”  The 
emigration  of  Italy  “ is  the  main  condition  of  the  circumstance 
that  she  is  forced  to  have  a foreign  policy,”  and  from  that  policy 
she  should  aim  to  secure  the  greatest  profit.  “ Emigration  is 
one  of  the  points  of  departure  of  Nationalism,  one  of  the  very 
determiners  ( capisaldi ) of  its  character,  perhaps  indeed  the  first.”1 
Returning  to  his  theme  in  still  another  work,  he  says,  “ It  should 
be  understood  that  emigration  signifies  the  abandonment  of  Ital- 
ian labor  to  itself  throughout  the  world,  whereas  conquest  of 
colonies  signifies  Italian  labor  accompanied  through  the  world  by 
the  other  forces  of  the  Italian  nation,  by  the  nation  itself.”  Again, 
“ Too  large  a population  in  too  small  a country.  And  when  it  is  so, 
either  men  must  conquer  colonies  or  emigrate  or  must  become 
neo-malthusians.  But  the  last  course  is  vile,  emigration  is  servile, 
and  only  the  conquest  of  colonies  is  worthy  of  a free  and  noble 
people.”  2 Once  more,  “ There  are  proletariate  nations  just  as 
there  are  proletariate  classes.”  That  is,  they  are  inferior  to  others. 
Such  a nation  is  Italy  — “for  all  arguments  let  her  emigra- 
tion suffice.”  She  should  become  nation-conscious,  nationalistic. 
Nationalism  is  a reaction  against  socialism  — class-consciousness, 
the  class  struggle  — which  it  fights  tooth  and  nail.  It  is  a 
reaction  against  a false  international  idealism;  all  balance  of 
power  represents  but  a transitory  adaptation.  The  aim  of  Na- 
tionalism is  la  guerra  vittoriosa  — in  labor,  in  trade,  in  morals,  in 
culture.3 

Corradini  and  Sighele  are  only  the  best  known  of  the  Na- 
tionalists. Others  are  G.  De  Frenzi,  F.  Carli,  L.  Federzoni  (a 
prominent  journalist  and  deputy),  R.  F.  Davanzati  (who  came 
from  socialism),  G.  Bevione  (correspondent  of  the  Turin  Stampa ), 

1 II  volere  d’ltalia  ( cit .),  pp,  63  f.,  75,  178;  his  most  explicit  work.  Earlier 
(Florence,  1907),  he  had  published  La  vita  nazionale. 

2 L’ora  di  Tripoli  (Milan,  1911),  pp.  21,  30. 

3 II  volere  d’ltalia,  pp.  163-177. 


496  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

L.  Villari  (writer  and  former  consular  official),  and  G.  Castellini 
(a  brilliant  journalist).  The  Idea  Nazionale  from  having  been  a 
weekly  became  a daily.  Presently  not  only  the  Turin  Stampa, 
but  the  Naples  Mattino  and  the  Giornale  d’ Italia,  became  imbued 
with  the  new  spirit.  Yet,  though  an  apostolic  fervor  marked  the 
utterances  of  the  leaders,  few  can  have  guessed  how  soon  the  seed 
they  scattered  would  itself  come  to  fruit.  The  “ hour  of  Tripoli  ” 
was  at  hand. 

To  ascribe  to  the  Nationalists  the  seizure  of  Tripoli  would  be 
excessive.  The  issue  harked  back  farther.  Di  Rudini  was  the 
spokesman  of  all  Italy  when  in  1881  he  cried  out  his  resentment 
against  the  French  for  occupying  Tunisia,  with  its  Italian  popula- 
tion, and  so  disturbing  the  Mediterranean  balance  of  power.  As 
everybody  knows,  the  political  consequence  of  this  act  was  to 
make  Italy  a member,  the  next  year,  of  the  Triple  Alliance.  Step 
by  step  the  vision  of  an  Italian  empire  had  been  narrowed.  Eng- 
land was  in  Cyprus  and  in  Egypt,  Austria  fastened  her  hold  upon 
Bosnia  and  Herzegovina,  France  next  became  assured  of  the  pos- 
session of  Morocco.  These  events  were  mainly  recent.  Indeed 
after  Italian  claims  upon  Morocco  had  been  yielded  up,  or,  as  one 
writer  put  it,  after  the  “ tunisification  ” of  Morocco,  there  could 
be  left  to  Italy  in  North  Africa  only  Tripoli.  But  much  earlier, 
when  Tunisia,  held  to  be  geographically  a prolongation  of  Sicily, 
had  become  terra  perduta , Tripoli  became  terra  promessa.  In  1890 
Crispi  got  Salisbury’s  assurance  that  some  day  Italy  should  have 
Tripoli.  Historical  destiny,  based  upon  a conception  of  prior 
right,  pointed  her  finger  the  same  way  — had  not  Tripoli  and 
Cyrenaica  been  colonies  of  the  Roman  Empire  ? Men  spoke  of 
the  region  as  bound  to  become  Italian  again.  Ricciotti  Garibaldi 
kindled  imaginations  when  he  declared  that  eight  or  ten  million 
Italians  could  live  there.  Presently  came  the  celebration  of  the 
first  half  century  of  Italian  unity,  with  its  quickening  of  pa- 
triotism, its  heightening  of  the  pride  of  the  people.  Conscious  of 
their  own  abounding  population,  they  resented  the  further  ac- 
quisition of  colonies  by  nations  that  had  room  to  spare.  They 
were  tired  of  being,  in  a common  phrase,  the  Cinderella  of  the 


OPINION  AND  POLICY  IN  ITALY  497 

nations.  And  only  Tripoli  could  keep  them  from  being  prisoners 
in  the  Mediterranean. 

In  1905  the  Foreign  Minister  Tittoni  had  deplored  any  effort  to 
take  Tripoli  while  friendly  relations  existed  with  Turkey.  Five 
years  later,  the  Foreign  Minister  San  Giuliano  declared  it  to  be  a 
fundamental  of  his  policy  also  to  maintain  the  status  quo  in  the 
Mediterranean  and  he  more  than  once  rebuked  those  who  at- 
tacked the  Turks,  or  who  urged  that  America  might  close  her 
doors  to  Italian  emigrants  who  therefore  ought  to  be  free  to  go 
into  a conquered  Tripoli.  Early  in  June,  1911,  further  agitation 
developed  in  Parliament,  one  speaker  alluding  to  articles  pub- 
lished in  the  preceding  two  months  in  La  Stampa,  “ the  most 
authoritative  journal  of  Piedmont,”  and  in  La  Tribuna  of  Rome, 
showing  the  need  of  raising  Italian  prestige  in  the  Mediterranean. 
To  all  San  Giuliano  replied,  on  June  9,  that  the  integrity  of  the 
Ottoman  Empire  must  be  preserved,  that  even  then  the  Turks 
feared  the  expansionist  aims  of  Italy  and  indeed  had  been  given 
some  ground  therefor.1 

Three  months  later  the  Italian  expedition  was  virtually  decided 
upon.  What  had  happened  ? Hand  in  hand,  the  balance  of 
power  argument  and  the  argument  for  an  outlet  for  the  nation  had 
swept  Italy.  Just  at  what  moment  the  propagandists  ceased  to  be 
regarded  as  visionaries  and  were  deemed  advocates  of  a desirable 
course  is  hard  to  say.  Seven  months  before  war  was  declared, 
Castellini  wrote  his  Tunisi  e Tripoli , the  first  Nationalist  book 
directly  inciting  to  the  expedition.  “ Every  day,”  he  said, 
“ which  passes  is,  politically,  a day  lost.”  2 The  Austrian  war  he 
declared  could  wait;  sentiment  was  ripe  for  Tripoli.  In  the 
spring,  the  Tribuna  printed  the  enthusiastic  exhortations  of  G. 
Piazza  (later  editor-in-chief  of  the  Rivista  Coloniale ),  and  his  book, 
La  nostra  terra  promessa,  was  issued  in  July.  In  the  spring  like- 
wise appeared  Bevione’s  letters  in  the  Stampa ; in  September  he 
declared  “ It  is  now  or  never.”  In  the  spring  once  more,  Cor- 

1 On  some  thirty  years  of  Parliamentary  debate  see  La  Libia  negli  alii  del  Parla- 
mento  e nei  prowedimenti  del  Governo,  issued  by  the  Collegio  di  Scienze  Politiche  e 
Coloniali,  2 vols.,  Milan,  1912-13. 

2 Tunisi  e Tripoli  (Turin,  1911),  p.  193. 


498  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

radini  lectured,  and  through  the  summer  published  his  letters  in 
L'Idea  Nazionale.  The  question  of  South  Italy,  he  maintained, 
is  an  African  question.  “ I mean  to  say  that  the  South  is  as  it  is 
mainly  because  it  is  near  to  Africa.  The  principal  cause  of  all  the 
differences  between  North  and  South  is  the  difference  between 
Europe  and  Africa.”  To  europeanize  Africa  is  therefore  to  help 
the  South.1  Increasingly  the  newspapers  championed  the  proj- 
ect, often  dwelling  upon  the  emigration  argument.  It  was  urged 
that  men  would  doubtless  leave  Tunisia  and  other  countries  where 
they  were  not  wanted,  to  settle  in  Tripoli.2  As  the  summer  drew 
to  a close  there  was  no  longer  any  doubt  that  the  preponderance 
of  opinion  enthusiastically  favored  the  expedition. 

Corradini  has  stated  the  opposition  of  Nationalism  and 
socialism.  Did  the  socialists  yield  ? A left  wing  under  Turati, 
and  the  Emilian  socialists  generally,  opposed  the  expedition;  the 
rest  favored  it,  including  the  Labriolas,  P.  Orano,  A.  0.  Olivetti, 
A.  Cabrini,  A.  Berenini.  It  must  be  remembered  that  Italian 
socialists  are  largely  from  the  South,  and  the  Southern  populace 
in  general  approved  the  war.  Arturo  Labriola  counselled  not  to 
confound  this  venture  with  imperialism,  since  Nature  had  granted 
to  Italy  freedom  of  movement  in  the  Mediterranean.  In  the  Idea 
Nazionale,  the  staunch  Antonio  Labriola  held  that  the  expedi- 
tion would  give  a spur  to  Italian  initiative,  a quality  necessary  to 
socialist  ends.  It  was  not,  he  asserted,  anti-democratic  to  employ 
military  force  to  carve  out  a region  whither  the  Italian  people 
might  go  to  settle  for  centuries  — never  could  there  be  an  inde- 
pendent life  for  them  in  Argentina  and  Brazil.3 

Needless  to  say,  the  authorities  of  the  Colonial  Institute  ap- 

1 L'ora  di  Tripoli,  p.  227.  Later  he  wrote  (“  Italy  from  Adowa,”  etc.,  p.  1019): 
“ Progressive  communities  may  be  said  to  fulfill  the  law  of  productive  possession. 
They  have  a just  claim  to  the  territory  they  occupy.  . . . Not  so  the  undeveloped 
or  the  decaying  peoples.  Of  these  it  is  right  to  say  that  the)"  are  colonies  awaiting 
the  European,  who  shall  extend  to  them  and  for  their  advantage  the  science  of  pro- 
duction which  he  has  mastered.  That  is  his  title  to  dominion.” 

2 Cf.  D.  Tumiati,  Tripolitania  (Milan,  1911),  p.  288.  As  early  as  1904,  Tumiati 
wished  the  conquest  of  Tripoli  to  be  undertaken. 

3 On  the  socialists,  see  G.  Podrecca,  Libia-impressioni  e polemiche  (Rome,  1912), 
esp.  pp.  5-51,  where  the  socialist  argument  appears.  Cf.  A.  Dauzat,  L’ expansion 
italienne  (Paris,  1914),  P-  91- 


OPINION  AND  POLICY  IN  ITALY 


499 


proved  the  expedition,  as  the  columns  of  its  organ  illustrate.1  Its 
first  president,  in  fact,  had  written  an  expansionist  book  about 
Tripoli.  The  cross  being  superior  to  the  crescent,  the  Roman 
Catholic  clergy  likewise  approved  and  publicly  prayed  for  the 
success  of  Italian  arms. 

By  February  of  1912  the  main  burden  of  the  fighting  was  over. 
Peace  terms  were  signed  in  October.  The  ultimatum  precipitat- 
ing the  war  had  threatened  “ military  occupation,”  but  annexa- 
tion was  its  outcome.  The  entire  diplomatic  procedure  leaves  a 
dark  page  in  Italian  history,  for  which  the  best  that  can  be  said  is 
that  a Moslem  power  and  a supposedly  inferior  race  were  in 
question.2  Whether  the  natural  conditions  of  the  new  colony  can 
ever  be  so  managed  as  to  provide  a haven  for  Italian  emigrants 
has  not  yet  been  determined.  Hopes  have  certainly  run  high,  and 
emigrants  in  various  parts  of  the  world  were  presently  declared  to 
have  made  plans  to  go  there.3 

When  the  war  for  Tripoli  was  ended,  Sighele  declared  that  the 
Nationalist  party  had  no  further  reason  to  exist.  Its  aim  was  ac- 
complished. Yet  its  special  aim,  in  this  seer’s  eyes,  had  been  to 
awaken  and  unite  Italy.  And  that  was  now  accomplished. 
“ Have  you  ever  noted  the  light  in  the  face  of  a girl  in  love  ? ” 
Such  a light,  he  held,  radiates  from  Italians’  faces  now  — - they 
love  Italy.4  Something  had  been  done  to  bring  North  and  South 
together.  And  Italians  the  world  over  felt  an  access  of  pride. 

1 See  the  article  by  R.  Paoli,  “ Tripoli  nostra,”  Rivista  Coloniale,  September  25- 
October  10,  1911,  pp.  317-322. 

2 On  the  procedure  see  Sir  Thomas  Barclay,  The  Turco-I lalian  War  and  its  Prob- 
lems, London,  1912. 

3 Cf.  L.  Villari,  “ Italy  a Year  after  the  Libyan  War,”  Fortnightly  Review,  Novem- 
ber, 1913,  p.  936. 

On  the  Tripoli  venture  a considerable  literature,  largely  Nationalistic,  was  quick 
to  blossom  forth.  Among  the  important  books  of  1912  are  these:  G.  Piazza,  Come 
conquistammo  Tripoli  (Rome);  G.  Bevione,  Come  siamo  andati  a Tripoli  (Turin); 
E.  Corradini,  La  conquista  di  Tripoli  (Milan);  G.  Castellini,  Nelle  trincee  di  Tripoli 
(Bologna);  G.  Coen,  L’ltalia  a Tripoli  (Leghorn);  V.  Mantegazza,  Tripoli  e i 
diritti  della  civiltd  (Milan);  G.  Mosca,  Italia  e Libia  (Milan);  V.  Cottafavi,  Nella 
Libia  italiana  (Bologna).  An  important  later  work  is  Societa  Italiana  per  lo  Studio 
della  Libia,  La  Missione  Franchetti  in  Tripolitania,  Florence,  1914. 

4 S.  Sighele,  “ La  nouvelle  psychologie  irredentiste  depuis  l’expedition  tripoli- 
taine,”  La  Revue,  March  15,  1912,  p.  151. 


500 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


The  imperialist  dream  had  been  quickened,  not  ended,  by  the 
step  toward  empire.  The  East  still  lured.  During  the  Libyan 
war  Rhodes  and  the  Sporades  had  been  occupied,  and  the  Ital- 
ians, welcomed  with  enthusiasm,  hoped  to  stay.1  In  1913  Italian 
capitalists  received  a concession  to  build  the  Adalia-Burdur  trunk 
line  in  Asia  Minor.  Promising  to  print  articles  dealing  with  the 
region,  the  Rivista  Coloniale  said  editorially,  “ now  that  European 
Turkey  is  liquidated,  the  appetites  and  rivalries  of  the  European 
powers  are  directed  toward  the  territories  of  Asiatic  Turkey.”  2 
Adalia  is  the  port  of  Anatolia,  the  land  nearest  to  Rhodes.  When 
Turkey  entered  the  European  war  the  prospect  of  disintegration 
became  still  brighter,  and  the  Colonial  Institute’s  journal,  which 
hitherto  had  published  little  on  the  war,  printed  a leading  article 
on  the  opportunity  created  by  the  new  turn  of  events.3 

The  Irredentist  movement,  which  in  the  passing  years  had 
lapsed  (as  Sighele  put  it)  into  a form  of  patriotic  romanticism,  did 
not  require  the  outbreak  of  the  Great  War  to  be  revived.  “ At 
Tripoli  we  all  felt  that  the  spectacle  of  energy  and  victory  given 
by  Italy  in  Africa  was  not  without  meaning  and  without  the  hope 
of  other  displays  of  energy  and  other  victories.”  Sighele  refers 
to  the  Trentino  and  Trieste.4  These  the  Nationalists  had  only 
for  the  moment  neglected.5  With  the  entrance  of  Italy  into  the 
war,  the  recovery  of  them  became  primary  aims.  In  Switzer- 
land, the  fear  was  spurred  (it  is  still  strong)  lest  the  ardor  of  the 
cause  be  extended  also  to  the  absorption  of  Canton  Ticino.6  From 
Austria,  full  control  of  the  Adriatic  wras  to  be  secured.  Albania 

1 Read  Corradini’s  recital  of  events,  Sopra  le  vie  del  mtovo  impero,  Milan,  1912. 

2 Rivista  Coloniale,  November  30,  1913,  p.  277. 

8 E.  C.  Tedeschi,  “ La  fatale  crisi  risolutiva  turca  e l’espansione  italiana  in 
Oriente,”  Rivista  Coloniale,  February,  1915,  pp.  61-69.  See  also  in  this  connection 
the  jubilant  article  by  G.  Capra  (a  Salesian  priest),  “ La  nostra  guerra,”  printed  in 
the  Bollettino  of  Italica  Gens,  March-June,  1915,  pp.  145-148. 

4 “ La  nouvelle  psychologie,”  p.  145. 

6 Many  advocates  of  the  Tripoli  expedition  now  wielded  their  pens  for  Italia 
Irredenta.  A characteristic  instance  is  G.  Castellini,  Trento  e Trieste,  Milan,  1915. 

0 In  1911,  while  the  desire  to  take  Tripoli  was  being  spurred,  A.  O.  Olivetti  pub- 
lished articles  in  Ticino  urging  that  the  canton  be  absorbed  by  Italy.  There  was 
alarm  in  Switzerland,  Olivetd  was  expelled,  and  his  paper  suppressed.  See  Bami, 
La  Svizzera  conlemporanea,  pp.  271  f. 


OPINION  AND  POLICY  IN  ITALY  501 

was  hoped  for  and  a road  into  Asia  Minor.  All  these  regions 
could  be  peopled.  So  the  Italy  of  the  future  would  be  made  by  the 
emigrants. 

Such  has  been  the  recent  history  of  expansionism  in  Italy  in 
relation  to  emigration.  In  other  countries  the  desire  for  colonial 
aggrandizement  has  been  fully  as  strong  as  in  Italy,  but  in  no 
other  country  has  the  argument  for  an  outlet  for  redundant  popu- 
lation counted  so  heavily  or  in  so  wide  a circle  of  the  nation,  and 
in  no  other  country  surely  has  it  been  so  cogent  and  practical  an 
argument.  What  lands  shall  we  develop  with  our  abounding 
capital  ? Whence  shall  come  our  raw  materials  ? Where  shall  we 
find  a market  for  our  goods  ? These  are  the  questions  asked  by 
the  imperialism  of  the  rich.  But  the  imperialism  of  the  poor,  as 
Corradini  called  it,  asks,  Whither  shall  we  send  our  sons  and  our 
daughters,  who  have  no  place  at  home  ? 


CHAPTER  XXIV 


CONCLUSIONS.  THE  LARGER  TASKS  AHEAD 

A wave  which  breaks  upon  many  shores,  Italian  emigration  is  not 
to  be  appraised  from  any  one  angle  alone.  Like  every  world 
phenomenon,  it  so  closely  touches  many  different  interests  that 
here  an  Italian,  there  an  American,  have  each  felt  warranted  to 
pronounce  separate  judgment.  Whether  we  will  or  not,  however, 
we  must  not  leave  out  of  account  any  great  interest  that  is  touched 
— not  the  emigrants  themselves,  not  Italy,  not  the  lands  to  which 
they  go.  And  we  must  assume  that  our  powers  of  action  or  of 
suasion  exceed  the  bounds  of  any  one  country,  and  must  be  willing 
to  contemplate  some  sort  of  coordinated  policy. 

Only  the  blindest  historian  will  hold  that  what  exists  is  inde- 
pendent of  ourselves  and  is  best.  The  complexion  of  affairs  will 
change,  and  largely  what  we  decide  will  determine  what  will  next 
follow.  New  emigration  policies  will  rule,  and,  in  the  era  we  are 
now  entering  upon,  they  will  not  be  complacent  ones. 

Since  this  entire  book  has  been  an  attempt  to  lay  bare  the 
grounds  for  a policy,  only  a few  words  are  here  necessary  to  gather 
together  separate  strands.  One  thing  stands  forth  plainly.  So 
mingled  with  all  success  is  failure,  so  balancing  all  happiness  is 
disillusionment,  that  those  who  would  fling  wider  the  gates  for 
emigration  cannot  be  the  spokesmen  of  the  mass.  That  emigrants 
who  return  to  Italy  are  generally  better  off  than  when  they  de- 
parted, or  better  off  than  those  who  stayed  at  home,  is  not  to  be 
doubted:  at  least  two  government  investigations  have  so  con- 
cluded. But  those  who  returned  were  mainly  a somewhat  select 
group  in  emigrating,  and  were  among  the  more  successful  abroad. 
At  the  other  extreme,  some  thousands  of  indigent  Italians  every 
year  are  repatriated  by  charitable  organizations,  yet  most  of 
them  and  the  mass  who  just  manage  to  escape  indigence  enter 
into  the  calculations  of  few  persons.  It  is  impossible  to  construe 


502 


CONCLUSIONS.  THE  LARGER  TASKS  AHEAD  503 


the  impressive  totals  of  remittances  sent  home  as  evidence  of 
general  success : they  are  too  irregular,  or  too  small,  or  represent 
too  extensively  the  surpluses  of  individuals  not  supporting  fami- 
lies abroad.  The  houses  of  the  “ americani  ” on  the  Riviera  about 
Genoa  were  built  with  remittances,  but  they  tell  us  nothing  of 
those  toiling  thousands  who  were  only  the  stepchildren  of  fortune 
in  the  New  World  and  whose  voices  of  protest  cannot  be  heard. 
Fraud  and  deceit  are  at  every  turn,  too  elusive  to  be  more  than 
speciously  checked;  like  beetles  that  infest  a tree  whose  robust- 
ness is  gone,  these  are  competent  to  find  out  the  emigrant  where- 
ever  he  is.  The  padrone  who  trafficked  in  children  in  the  early 
days  was  succeeded  by  the  padrone  who  trafficked  in  men;  if 
today  the  name  is  fading,  the  function,  though  more  diffused,  is 
still  there.  “ Le  peuple  a besoin  de  rire,”  was  said  of  the  singing 
and  dancing  children,  but  the  same  impersonal  exploitation  of  the 
Italian’s  humble  competence  exists  today  wherever  he  goes. 

“ Among  ten  illiterate  emigrants,  only  two  perhaps  will  succeed 
in  clearing  themselves  a path  to  moderate  gains,”  Sig.  Franzoni 
once  declared,  and  he  recommended  that  the  illiterate  be  pre- 
vented from  emigrating.1  But  illiteracy  is  only  one  evidence  of 
ill  preparedness.  The  tragedy  of  emigration  lies  precisely  in  this, 
that  it  exacts  energetic  and  well  directed  effort  of  a mass  generally 
ill  fitted  therefor.  The  fact  that  a man  wishes  to  sally  forth  is 
no  proof  that  all  is  well.  There  is  no  one  “emigration”  by  which 
he  can  gauge  his  chances  of  success;  there  are  emigrations  — to 
Buenos  Aires,  to  Delaware,  last  year,  this  year,  by  one  kind  of 
person  or  another  — and  the  variability  of  circumstances,  ac- 
cording as  one  year  or  country  or  collection  of  personal  attributes 
is  taken,  makes  any  inference  from  others’  fortunes  difficult. 
Italy,  we  have  seen,  has  recognized  the  blindness  to  which  the 
emigrant  masses  are  heir  by  so  far  assuming  responsibility  for 
their  decisions  as,  from  time  to  time,  to  suspend  emigration  to 
particular  regions.  But  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  the  re- 
sponsibility should  not  be  exercised  oftener  and  in  more  diverse 
ways. 

1 Atti  del  Primo  Congresso  degli  Italiani  all'  Eslero,  ii,  p.  140.  Cf.  Brenna’s  simi- 
lar inference  and  recommendation  in  his  L’emigrazione  italiana  (1918),  ch.  xiii. 


504 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


No  one  can  follow  the  fortunes  of  the  Italians  abroad  without 
being  struck  by  a sort  of  contempt  in  which  they  are  often  held. 
“ Dago,”  “gringo,”  “ carcamano,”  “ badola,”  “cincali,”  “mac- 
aroni ” — how  long  the  list  of  epithets  might  be!  “ Italy  feeds 
nobody  and  is  everybody’s  guest  ” was  the  widely  quoted  utter- 
ance of  a Frenchman.  Whether  such  names  and  such  opinions 
originate  in  the  laborer’s  resentment  of  competition  or  in  the 
citizen’s  easy  association  of  objectionable  or  misunderstood  per- 
sonal attributes  with  the  idea  of  the  foreigner,  they  but  emphasize 
the  discomfort  of  the  Italians  and  stir  up  a sense  of  shame  in 
Italy.1  In  the  Parliament  at  Rome  frequent  reference  has  been 
made  to  the  dislike  in  which  Italians  have  been  held  in  the  United 
States,  and  such  men  as  San  Giuliano  and  Tittoni  believed  there 
were  reasons  for  it.  Those  who  have  most  lauded  the  Greater 
Italy  of  the  emigrants  have  realized  its  circumscriptions.  Money 
confers  a respect  and  an  influence  (that  of  England  for  example  in 
Argentina)  to  which  toil  cannot  attain.  The  Greater  Italy  is  an 
empire  — but  a proletariate  empire.  It  bestrides  the  world  like  a 
Colossus  — but  a Colossus  arrayed  in  rags. 

In  nearly  every  country  which  they  enter,  the  mass  of  the  Ital- 
ians, at  least  for  a period  of  years,  are  at  the  social  bottom.  This 
derives  not  merely  from  their  economic  status,  their  manifold 
helplessness,  their  all  but  inevitable  retention  of  foreign  ways.  It 
derives  from  the  fact  that  their  traits  unpleasantly  or  too  plainly 
suggest  the  hybrid.  For  good  or  ill,  the  old,  more  homogeneous 
stock,  priding  itself  on  its  harmonious  manners,  its  political  co- 
hesion, and  often  on  its  pure  blood,  resents  intrusion.  Only  in 
such  a region  as  the  Ticino  is  the  Italian  regarded  as  the  represen- 
tative of  a purer  strain  and  a higher  civilization.  He  may  take 
out  the  citizenship  of  the  country  which  he  has  entered,  but  to  his 
new  compatriots  he  is  still  a naturalized  Italian.  Naturalized  or 
not,  on  the  other  hand,  if  he  returns  to  Italy  after  a sojourn  over- 
seas he  is  classed  with  the  americani;  yet  this  appellation,  it  must 

1 This,  for  example,  from  de  Amicis,  watching  his  countrymen  debark:  “ I felt  a 
humiliation  which  made  me  shun  the  regard  of  foreigners  who  were  on  the  ship  with 
me  and  whose  affected  exclamations  of  surprise  were  only  so  many  reproaches  to 
my  country.”  On  Blue  Water,  p.  375. 


CONCLUSIONS.  THE  LARGER  TASKS  AHEAD  505 


be  granted,  does  not  forget  that  at  bottom  he  is  still  a sort  of 
Italian.  In  truth  he  is  neither  an  Italian  nor  an  American,  but  a 
denizen  of  some  Third  World.  Cabrini  tells  of  a recruit  who,  after 
failing  to  understand  instructions  given  by  a corporal  in  Italian, 
became  a party  to  a lively  dialogue  when  a sergeant,  back  from 
America,  addressed  him  in  English.  That  perhaps  is  the  humor 
of  the  situation.  But  there  is  deep  pathos  too.  In  the  foreign 
settlements,  visiting  Italians  of  culture  have  often  regretfully 
pointed  out  that  the  emigrants  seem  lost,  half  absorbed,  unable 
any  longer  to  speak  their  own  language;  yet  these  same  immi- 
grants the  people  of  the  new  country  regard  as  foreigners,  seeing 
ten  points  of  difference  for  one  of  achieved  resemblance. 

Italians  in  Italy  have  often  deplored  the  fact  that  the  emigrants 
are  not  pioneers  but  wage  earners.  The  surplus  value,  in  the 
language  of  socialism,  which  they  create  is  neither  for  themselves 
nor  for  their  country.  What  is  more,  their  toil  in  the  past  has  gone 
largely  to  strengthen  their  enemies,  has  even  gone  to  further  mili- 
tary preparations  later  directed  against  them.  But  this,  perhaps, 
is  less  an  argument  than  an  indictment  of  fate. 

Vastly  more  momentous  is  the  reasoning  as  to  nationality. 
Grant  that  the  political  sense  is  weak  in  most  emigrants,  yet  that 
which  makes  the  best  foundation  for  its  upbuilding,  the  love  of 
country,  if  only  a campanilismo,  is  tremendously  rooted.  The 
Italian  abroad  does  not  want  to  be  absorbed,  he  wants  some  day 
to  return  home.  The  Italian  at  home  desires  him  still  to  remain 
an  Itaban.  A parental  — not  a crudely  imperialistic  — desire  is 
there.  Italia  is  the  mother.  To  become  naturalized  abroad  is  to 
give  up  what  one  dearly  loves,  is  even,  as  a writer  has  held,  to 
be  treacherous  to  one’s  country.  Yet  not  to  become  naturah'zed 
abroad  is  only  to  accentuate  one’s  Third  World  character,  is  to  be 
“ an  individual  only,  not  a citizen  — that  is,  half  a man,”  as 
Corradini  put  it.1  To  press  naturalization  upon  such  persons,  as 
is  sometimes  done  in  the  United  States,  is  a one-sided  idealism, 
and  may  be  the  reverse  of  kindness.  The  Third  World  dilemma 
has  yet  to  be  solved. 


1 II  volere  d’ltalia,  p.  154. 


506  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

One  honor  indeed  Italy  enjoys  upon  which  little  or  no  stress  has 
been  laid.  Her  blood  makes  its  contribution  to  the  great  world 
races.  Her  sons  die,  but  their  sons  live  on.  As  generations  of 
plants  succeed  one  another,  there  is  here  an  immortality  of  race 
stock.  The  Italian  blood  will  count  in  the  remotest  future  of 
Europe  and  North  Africa,  of  South  and  North  America,  and  in 
some  important  countries  it  will  count  for  a great  deal.  What  the 
natural  historian  of  emigration  here  sees  is  no  barren  distinction 
to  Italy.  But,  also,  what  he  sees  fails  to  send  a thrill  through  the 
heart  of  the  patriot  in  the  Mediterranean,  who  beholds  only  the 
price  that  has  inevitably  to  be  paid:  political  and  cultural  dis- 
continuity and  sacrifice. 

What  shall  be  thought  of  the  mountains  of  labor  performed  by 
the  Italians  in  the  countries  where  they  go  ? A poet  might  make 
an  epic  of  it.  It  is  a tale  which  deserves  never  to  be  forgotten,  a 
tribute  to  hardihood  and  energy.  Generally,  however,  those  who 
praise  the  labor,  seeing  only  the  shining  result,  have  made  little 
reckoning  of  its  true  cost  in  terms  of  human  strain  and  privation. 
The  Pyramids  inspire  the  beholder  with  awe  — do  they  inspire 
him  enough  with  pity?  We  live  in  an  age  which  has  increasingly 
given  the  worker  a voice,  made  him  a brother  in  society;  and  we 
are  asking,  as  men  have  never  asked  before,  whether  such  con- 
ditions of  toil  and  of  living  shall  be  tolerated  as  these  of  the  Ital- 
ians. For,  if  exception  be  made  of  the  stagnant  pools  of  sunken 
humanity  which  our  great  industrial  nations  have  developed  here 
and  there  in  their  cities,  then  these  emigrants  can  be  said  to  lead 
more  irksome  lives  than  any  other  modern  class  of  workers,  not 
themselves  emigrants,  of  an  equal  racial  endowment. 

The  economic  value  of  their  achievement  to  the  nations  con- 
cerned is  not  to  be  denied,  even  though  that  of  the  single  emigrant 
be  deemed  slight  (as  it  must).  It  cannot  be  argued,  however,  that 
a corresponding  world  gain  also  arises.  Rather,  on  the  contrary, 
the  exportation  of  unskilled  laborers,  shopkeepers,  and  the  rest, 
along  all  the  pathways  of  the  globe  is  a most  costly  procedure. 
That  adaptation  to  environment  which  comes  almost  incidentally 
to  the  growing  child,  the  knowledge  for  example  of  the  vernacular, 


CONCLUSIONS.  THE  LARGER  TASKS  AHEAD  50 ? 


is  largely  useless  abroad  and  must  be  done  over  again  and  this 
time  by  an  organism  that  has  lost  its  flexibility.  Could  anything 
be  more  luckless  ? In  all  time,  doubtless,  it  will  prove  advisable  to 
make  economic  readjustments  through  the  emigration  of  skilled 
men,  or  of  men  with  special  aptitudes,  and  in  all  time  cultural 
enrichment  will  result  from  such  movements,  but  more  and  more 
men  will  question  whether  the  unskilled,  because  fit  for  so  little 
and  the  sport  of  every  wind  that  blows,  should  be  encouraged  to 
migrate. 

In  Tunisia,  South  Brazil,  and  Argentina,  mass  settlements  of 
Italians  have  largely  made  the  race  stock  of  the  country  or  have 
built  a state  within  the  state.  In  other  countries  most  citizens 
have  generally  deemed  them  a foreign  body.  Far  from  providing 
any  of  that  “ cohesive  force  ” which  Mr.  Graham  Wallas  has 
eloquently  claimed  to  be  needful  in  the  Great  Society,  they  are  a 
force  for  disunion.  Everywhere  employers  of  labor  want  them,  but 
laborers  want  them  not,  and  everywhere  the  conflict  of  employers 
and  laborers  waxes  a little  sharper  through  their  presence.  It  may 
be  true  that  the  “ marginal  productivity  ” of  the  laboring  classes 
is  heightened  a peg  by  their  coming,  but  that  is  an  intangible  gain, 
whereas  the  conflict  in  the  labor  market  and  propinquity  in 
domicile  — the  assault  upon  the  standard  of  living  — are  felt 
exasperations;  and  certainly  for  some  classes  of  laborers  the 
standard  of  living  is  really  adversely  affected.  The  temporary 
comer,  the  kind  most  approved  in  Italy,  is  generally  disliked,  for 
it  is  realized  that  he  is  homo  oeconomicus  alone,  and  remains  quite 
outside  the  body  politic.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  immigrant 
becomes  naturalized,  his  new  country  declares  it  must  not  be  for 
business  reasons,  but  because,  heart  and  soul,  he  wishes  to  sub- 
stitute its  interests  and  traditions  for  those  of  the  land  of  his 
birth.  To  citizens  of  the  United  States,  for  example,  nothing 
could  be  more  repugnant  than  the  thought  that  any  Italian  should 
profess  a new  allegiance  in  order  to  make  more  dollars,  while  in- 
wardly reserving  to  himself  the  presumption  that,  when  the 
pecuniary  motive  is  satisfied,  he  will  return  to  Italy  to  avail  him- 
self of  the  law  for  the  quick  restoration  of  his  former  citizenship. 
All  true  allegiance  of  the  heart  changes  with  difficulty.  The  Great 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


508 

War,  exercising  tremendous  pressure  and  putting  a premium  upon 
gigantic  cooperation,  seems  to  bring  into  line  a large  part  of  the 
foreigners  of  all  nationalities  in  the  United  States,  and  some  of 
its  accomplishment  will  surely  endure;  but  when  the  united  front 
is  no  longer  necessary,  many  of  the  immigrants  will  again  show 
themselves,  as  Mr.  Wallas  would  say,  “ resistant  to  the  dissolv- 
ing force  of  national  consciousness.”  1 

Dr.  Brougnes,  aspiring,  through  the  colonization  of  Argentina 
to  extinguish  pauperism  in  Europe,  was  only  one  rather  interest- 
ing adherent  of  a theory  that  fifty  years  ago  held  many  thinkers  in 
thrall.  It  is  a theory  which  today  has  not  a leg  left  to  stand  upon. 
Probably,  also,  the  conditions  which  made  the  last  half  century  a 
dynamic  era  without  parallel,  when,  for  example,  the  great  rail- 
way nets  of  the  newer  countries  were  laid  down,  will  not  rule  in 
the  next  half  century.  It  is  clearer  now  than  it  has  ever  been  that, 
as  Dr.  Bertarelli  once  put  it,  emigration  is  a sort  of  conquest,  and, 
if  it  is  to  bring  success  to  the  individual,  he  must  be  strong  physi- 
cally and  variously  fit  and  resistant  for  a hard  task.  And  it  must 
be  manifest  to  whoever  fairly  surveys  the  whole  breadth  of  the 
emigration  sequence  that  most  of  the  emigration  from  Italy,  far 
from  voicing  any  hope  common  to  men  normally  situated,  is  a 
protest,  vociferous  yet  unheard  and  unheeded,  against  conditions 
that  must  some  day  be  made  over.  Emigration  does  not  itself 
change  these  conditions,  or  it  does  so  but  slowly,  at  great  cost, 
imperfectly.  It  is  not  a stream  that  carries  away  flood  waters 
(for  the  general  population  has  not  been  diminished),  but  rather 
a costly  means  of  holding  the  flood  in  abeyance.  It  acts,  not  by 
checking  the  water  at  its  source,  but  by  systematically  providing 
for  its  partial  removal.  To  sanction  it  is  to  evade  an  issue. 

The  reigning  philosophy  of  emigration  in  Italy  is  rudimentary. 
Expand  and  multiply,  the  Catholics  have  said,  but  they  have 
ignored  the  circumstances  and  standards  of  living.  We  find  you 
multiplying  and  poor,  the  non-Catholics  have  said,  we  will  open  a 
way  out  for  you;  but  they  too  have  underestimated  the  possibili- 


The  Great  Society  (New  York,  1914),  p.  10. 


CONCLUSIONS.  THE  LARGER  TASKS  AHEAD  509 


ties  of  internal  social  amelioration.  Even  Bodio,  whose  words  on 
the  necessity  of  emigration  have  been  so  widely  echoed,  could 
write,  “ The  excessive  increase  of  our  population  is  a product  of 
the  ignorance  of  the  people  and  of  their  misery,”  but  these  factors 
he  feared  would  inevitably  change  slowly.1  Whether  a state  of 
overpopulation  shall  or  shall  not  exist  in  a country  depends,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  upon  conditions  that  human  decision,  acting 
through  the  institutions  of  government,  is  largely  competent  to 
control.  Italy,  with  her  remarkable  law  for  the  protection  of  her 
emigrants,  has  been  less  watchful  over  her  children  at  home.  For 
Italy  to  leave  to  her  emigration  itself  the  task  of  the  redemption 
of  her  people,  as  many  persons  have  recommended,  is  a method  as 
cruel  as  it  would  be  bungling.  Specific  steps  of  reform  must  be 
taken,  and  to  that  end  a new  point  of  view  must  rule,  resting  upon 
a new  philosophy,  and  requiring  unprecedented  cooperation.  The 
old  apathy  must  go.  The  unqualified  notion  that  emigration  is 
necessary  must  likewise  go,  for  it  is  wrong  and  leads  to  an  over- 
drawing of  benefits  derived;  and  the  discovery  be  made  that 
self-confidence,  even  when  the  social  heritage  is  feudal,  may  be 
justified. 

How  strangely  persistent  the  old  view  has  been  that  poverty  is 
inevitable!  Kings,  as  the  historian  of  South  Italy  knows,  made 
their  trusted  alliances  with  the  organized  poor,  the  lazzaroni. 
After  the  South  was  somewhat  brusquely  incorporated  into  the 
kingdom,  the  statesmen  of  United  Italy  and  the  people  generally 
failed  to  see  how  special  was  her  problem.  Villari’s  Letter e 
Meridionali  impressed  thinking  minds  when  they  appeared  in  a 
newspaper  in  1875,  and  two  years  later  Franchetti  and  Sonnino’s 
remarkable  study  of  Sicily  deepened  the  impression.  Yet  greater 
landmarks  even  than  these,  in  the  development  of  study  of  the 
South  — immensely  significant  for  the  North  as  well  — were  the 
mighty  volumes  of  the  Inchiesta  Agraria,  a seven-years’  project 
begun  in  1877.  Had  these  volumes,  as  they  severally  appeared, 
been  carefully  studied,  instead  (as  Jacini  complained)  of  being 
ignored  by  the  press  and  deemed  an  unprofitable  undertaking,  the 
misery  of  masses  could  have  been  vastly  lessened.  But  it  re- 

1 “ Dell’  emigrazione  italiana,”  p.  9. 


510  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

quired  a similar  undertaking,  instituted  precisely  two-score  years 
later,  the  invaluable  Inchiesta  Parlamentare,  so  often  cited  in  this 
book,  to  rouse  a response  and  breed  a desire  for  reform.  (I  would 
not  ignore  the  brave  efforts  made  in  certain  laws  of  1904  and 
1906.)  Yet  the  active  friends  of  the  South  have  still  been  chiefly 
Southerners,  men  like  Zanardelli,  Nitti,  Fortunato,  Villari.  The 
time  has  surely  come  when  the  special  conditions  that  have  made 
at  once  for  misery  and  for  emigration,  in  South  and  North  to- 
gether, should  be  deemed  national  problems,  and  the  best  re- 
sources of  the  country  directed  to  coping  with  them. 

Argument  in  Italy  has  too  often  taken  a mercantile  turn.  The 
South,  it  has  held,  is  a poor  region;  it  cannot  pay  for  the  costly 
improvements  it  needs.  But  the  retort  is  plain  enough.  Five  or 
six  per  cent  may  indeed  not  be  earned,  but  greater  losses  will  be 
avoided.  The  poverty  of  a region  supplies  the  best  reason  why, 
decade  after  decade,  children  should  not  be  raised  to  be  sent  forth 
as  soon  as  they  have  attained  their  growth.  The  lessening  of 
strain  and  misery  should  be  a main  object  of  the  expenditure  of 
wealth  and  effort;  in  positive  terms,  the  creation  of  the  condi- 
tions that  make  for  happiness  should  be  a primary  aim  of  states- 
manship. 

Some  of  the  improvements  required  are  material,  some  moral. 
In  the  history  of  peoples  like  the  Scandinavian,  Swiss,  and  Ger- 
man, whose  emigrations  have  been  greatly  diminished,  the  direc- 
tion of  needed  reforms  is  prefigured.  Economic  changes  apt  to 
give  freer  scope  to  the  activities  of  men,  cultural  changes  that 
enable  the  individual  to  utilize  economic  opportunities  and  to 
raise  the  level  of  his  existence,  these  are  the  great  agencies.  They 
imply  as  well  a better-knit  society,  a social  organization  in  which 
the  aloofness  and  passivity  of  the  possessing  classes  are  brought 
to  an  end. 

Many  needed  improvements  are  such  as  in  better  situated 
societies  would  naturally  be  promoted  through  local  initiative 
and  at  local  expense.  The  error  in  Italy  has  been  to  assume  that 
the  South,  if  left  to  itself,  would  act.  Rather,  the  first  steps  must 
be  taken  by  the  State,  either  alone  or  in  conjunction  with  the 


CONCLUSIONS.  THE  LARGER  TASKS  AHEAD  511 


local  authorities.  Consider  the  matter  of  public  safety.  Were  the 
countryside  reasonably  secure,  were  it  unnecessary  to  pay  an 
annual  tax  to  thieves,  many  proprietors  who  now  dwell  in  the 
cities  would  be  ready  to  return  to  their  estates.  Consider  the 
forests.  Were  the  hillsides  reafforested,  much  land  that  lies  waste 
and  unproductive  could  be  made  to  yield,  and  those  floods  which 
now  devastate  farms  and  increase  malaria  could  be  reduced.1  The 
task  is  one  for  both  forestry  experts  and  engineers,  but  since  the 
gains  to  be  secured  are  general,  the  State  should  either  give  the 
money  therefor  or  lend  it  (with  the  forests  as  collateral).  Con- 
sider the  question  of  roads.  The  century  old  absence  of  them 
(the  Bourbons  feared  they  would  be  instruments  of  conspiracy) 
is  largely  to  blame  for  making  the  men  of  neighboring  towns  as 
strange  to  each  other  as  men  of  different  countries.  With  the  con- 
struction of  needed  highways,  not  only  would  all  marketing  be 
facilitated  but  the  spirit  of  campanilismo,  which  pulverizes  polit- 
ical competence,  would  decline.  Consider  the  problem  of  malaria. 
Analysis  of  the  blood,  where  necessary,  to  detect  infection,  the 
cure  of  every  case,  the  careful  screening  of  both  infected  and  unin- 
fected, the  drainage  or  oiling  of  standing  water  — these  means  of 
preventing  the  spread  of  the  disease  and  of  eliminating  the 
mosquito  or  the  germ  that  it  carries  can  only  be  effective  if  there 
is  a centralized  and  costly  campaign.  Here  again  the  State  must 
lead,  and  possibly  must  bear  the  chief  burden. 

Difficulties  bristle  in  the  path  of  agricultural  reform,  so 
neglected  during  the  struggle  for  unification  and  for  consolida- 
tion; but  much  can  be  done  to  lessen  them.  Some  one  has  said 
that  the  task  of  the  South  is  to  utilize  every  drop  of  water  that 
falls.  What  the  English  have  done  in  Egypt  (nay,  it  was  partly 
the  Italians!)  can  be  done  in  a small  way  many  times  over  in  South 
Italy.  Irrigation,  which  is  possible  in  many  sections,  would  make 
the  latifundium  less  necessary.  One  difficulty  about  the  system 
of  large  estates  is  that  they  rarely  come  into  the  market,  so  that 

1 In  a period  of  forty  years  the  amounts  spent  on  reafforestation  and  other  pre- 
ventive measures  were  utterly  insignificant  compared  with  the  cost  of  flood  damage 
repairs.  See  E.  Branzoli-Zappi,  “ Conseguenze  economiche  del  diboscamento  in 
Italia,”  Giornale  degli  Economist,  May,  1903,  pp.  409-422. 


512 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


even  if  men  had  money  wherewith  to  buy  land,  their  dreams  must 
be  unfulfilled.  While  it  is  true  that  the  ownership  of  land  by  the 
cultivator  is  not  inevitably  good,  the  ownership  of  medium-sized 
estates  has  far  the  best  chance  of  bringing  economical  exploita- 
tion. A hopeful  provision  of  the  law  of  1906  aimed  to  restore  the 
improvement  lease,  which  has  had  an  honorable  history  in  Italy. 
The  collective  lease  likewise  deserves  to  be  spurred.  In  the  long 
run  it  is  desirable  that  cash  rentals  should  supplant  share  rentals. 
On  the  technical  side  of  agriculture  and  arboriculture  a vast  field 
for  improvement  lies  open.  Deeper  plowing  would  alone  accom- 
plish much.  More  and  better  fertilizer  is  needed.  Machinery,  a 
device  for  saving  labor  rather  than  land,  could  be  more  exten- 
sively employed;  though  the  individual  ownership  of  many  ma- 
chines cannot  be  afforded,  cooperative  ownership  and  renting  are 
possible. 

The  development  of  British  land  legislation  -will  suggest  ways  of 
bringing  the  cultivators  into  better  control  of  their  lands.  Of  the 
public  domain  little  that  is  good  is  left.  It  might  be  advisable  for 
the  State  to  buy  lands  and  resell  them  (companies,  under  existing 
laws,  are  recommended  to  do  so,  but  have  done  h'ttle).  The  entire 
credit  situation  is  unfortunate.  It  perhaps  does  not  much  matter 
which  of  several  possible  ways  out  is  utilized.  In  any  case  the 
remittances  of  emigrants  should  to  a larger  extent  be  made 
available  for  local  credit  purposes.1 

Emigration  has  resulted  partly  from  the  growing  competition 
of  the  newer  countries  in  agriculture  and  partly  from  the  increase 
of  the  people  at  home.  The  agriculture  of  Italy  can  be  bettered 
and  specialized,  but  it  cannot  be  expected  to  support  so  large  a 
fraction  of  the  whole  population  as  it  once  did.  When  over  half 
the  population  is  engaged  in  agriculture,  and  yet  not  enough 
grain  is  produced  for  home  consumption,  it  is  obvious  that  other 
industries  must  supply  the  means  for  purchase.  Manufacturing 
and  trade  have  progressed  but  slowly  in  Italy.  In  many  regions 

1 See  A.  Vita,  “ Sulla  ripartizione  territoriale  del  risparmio  in  Italia,”  Giornale 
degli  Economist i,  September,  1914,  pp.  161-188;  and  G.  Nicotra,  “ Fabbisogno  e 
disponibilita  di  capitale  agricolo  circolante  per  la  Calabria,”  in  the  same  journal, 
October,  1914,  pp.  245-256. 


CONCLUSIONS.  THE  LARGER  TASKS  AHEAD  513 


the  domestic  industries  have  decayed  faster  than  modern  forms 
have  been  introduced.  Probably  the  confusion  resulting  from  the 
abolition  of  internal  tariffs,  after  the  unification  of  Italy,  did  much 
to  depress  industry  in  the  South,  while  stimulating  it  in  the  North. 
Yet  not  the  North  alone,  but  the  South  also,  have  valuable  sup- 
plies of  water  power,  as  yet  but  slightly  utilized.  In  the  working 
up  of  the  products  of  agriculture  and  fishing  there  is  a good  op- 
portunity for  trade.  The  fact  that  foreign  capital,  especially 
English,  has  been  introduced  into  South  Italy  is  a comment  both 
upon  the  absence  of  a spirit  of  enterprise,  and  upon  the  backward- 
ness of  business  methods.  Well  organized,  the  production,  for 
example,  of  the  citrous  fruits  in  their  salable  forms  might  win  a 
wide  market.  Industry  should  have  the  effect  of  employing  more 
hands  and  of  diversifying  local  fife,  and  so  providing  a chance  to 
rise  in  the  scale.  What  it  has  accomplished  in  checking  emigra- 
tion from  the  mountains  of  Switzerland  it  can  accomplish  in  Italy. 
Indeed  examples  of  its  action  there  are  already  to  be  found.1  But 
as  Montemartini  once  urged,  in  comment  upon  Nitti’s  ideal  of  the 
industrialization  of  the  South,  such  an  exodus  of  the  valid  popula- 
tion as  has  taken  place  in  Basilicata  is  the  wrong  way  to  prepare 
for  industry. 

Physical  remaking  of  the  country,  land  reforms,  and  Ihe  encour- 
agement of  trade  and  industry  are  only  part  of  the  necessary  pro- 
gramme for  redemption.  The  essential  institutions  of  democracy 
must  be  more  firmly  planted.  Steadily,  until  May,  1912,  when 
the  Libyan  war  made  men  reflect  upon  the  loyalty  of  laborers 
and  soldiers,  the  Governments  had  blocked  the  way  to  suffrage 
reform,  and  the  vote  was  actually  more  accessible  to  Italians  in 
some  great  foreign  countries  than  in  Italy.  Steadily,  until  then, 
when  a new  law  was  enacted,  the  mass  of  the  taxpayers,  and  of 
men  held  to  military  service,  were  denied  the  franchise.  But  the 

1 “ Five  or  six  years  ago  there  was  a strong  current  of  the  emigration  of  women 
from  Biella  into  France  (Meurthe-et-Moselle) ; now  it  is  much  less.  The  reason  is 
that  the  local  factories,  besides  being  both  more  numerous  and  more  important,  and 
offering  more  employment  to  women,  tend  to  move  into  the  cities,  and  so  all  the 
more  attract  the  factory  hands  after  them.”  Bernardy,  “ L’emigrazione  delle  donne 
e dei  fanciulli  del  Piemonte,”  p.  n;  cf.  p.  22. 


5H 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


vote  in  Italy  is  even  now  more  restricted  than  it  is  (legally)  in 
the  United  States,  and  much  must  still  be  done  to  render  effective 
the  new  modes  of  representation  and  the  new  path  to  leadership. 

But  the  institution  that  more  than  any  other  can  fit  men  to 
utilize  the  projected  economic  and  political  opportunities,  and 
indeed  to  assist  with  initiative  and  intelligence  in  establishing 
them,  is  the  school.  “ If  I could  read  I should  have  four  eyes,  but 
now  I see  naught,”  a peasant  in  Cosenza  said.1  Seeing,  they 
would  cease  to  be,  in  all  countries,  the  children  they  have  con- 
tinued to  be.  So  great  is  the  handicap  of  illiteracy  that,  even 
were  unlimited  emigration  to  become  permanent,  every  country 
should  acknowledge  its  obligation  to  give  those  born  within  its 
borders  the  great  primary  preparation  for  living.  Here  is  a reform 
which  both  those  who  would  keep  the  Italians  at  home,  and  those 
likewise  who  would  have  them  go  forth,  are  bound  to  support.  It 
has  been  approved  by  the  imperialist  elements  (compare  their 
support  of  the  Dante  Alighieri ),  for  it  tends  to  make  more  success- 
ful and  more  united  the  Italians  abroad.  It  has  been  urged  by 
many  returned  emigrants.  The  want  of  it  has  for  years  im- 
memorial been  almost  the  sum  of  the  indictment  which  all  ob- 
servers of  the  Italians  abroad  have  made.  Yet  in  the  responsible 
circles  of  Italy  interest  in  popular  education  has  been  all  too  mild. 
The  clear-seeing  Villari  advocated  it  as  early  as  1872,  the  volumes 
of  the  Inchiesta  Agraria,  a few  years  later,  repeatedly  asked  for  it, 
but  through  the  entire  period,  Parliamentary  reference  to  the 
matter,  in  arguments  dealing  with  emigration,  have  been  few.  By 
enactments  of  1904,  evening  and  holiday  schools  were  established, 
with  State  aid,  especially  in  the  most  illiterate  districts,  but  what 
these  provisions  accomplished  was  much  less  what  had  been  hoped 
for.  In  1906  a similar  but  more  systematic  provision  was  made 
in  the  South  and  Sicily  generally,  and  in  a few  years  some  three 
thousand  schools  were  established,  the  State  quite  taking  over  the 
function  of  education  in  some  of  the  poorest  communes  and  spend- 
ing a million  fire  a year  on  new  schools,  generally  upon  new  build- 
ings. But  since  the  schools  were  excessively  modest  affairs,  and 
since  many  had  later  to  be  shut  because  of  a lack  of  money  for 

1 Rossi,  “ Vantaggi  e danni,”  p.  58. 


CONCLUSIONS.  THE  LARGER  TASKS  AHEAD  515 


paying  teachers  and  for  other  purposes,  it  is  clear  that  a much 
more  extensive  provision  is  now  necessary.  Until  ten  or  a dozen 
years  ago,  the  average  annual  expenditure  per  inhabitant  on  edu- 
cation in  the  South  was  under  two  lire,  and  this,  perhaps  more 
than  anything  else,  explains  the  extraordinary  figures  for  illiteracy 
which  even  the  most  recent  census  has  been  forced  to  confess.1 
Besides  overcoming  illiteracy,  the  schools  must  go  further.  On 
the  one  hand  they  must  provide  trade  and  technical  education,  so 
facilitating  industrial  reforms,  and  on  the  other  those  liberal 
branches  of  learning  which  mean  so  much  for  the  training  of 
valuable  leadership  and  which  a war-worn  world,  overstressing 
material  things,  will  so  imperatively  need.2 

One  universal  factor  in  problems  of  sickness  and  health  is  the 
community,  and  in  Italy,  if  the  local  community  will  not  take  the 
initiative,  the  State  should.  I have  spoken  of  a malaria  campaign. 
Further,  there  should  be  resanitation  of  all  dwelling  houses  and 
none  should  be  erected  unless  with  the  expert  approval  of  sanitary 
authorities  — what  ignorance  of  hygiene  has  characterized  the 
planning  of  the  houses  of  the  americani ! 

I have  proposed  that  the  State  should  shoulder  the  main  re- 
sponsibility of  rehabilitating  the  backward  regions,  especially 
those  of  the  South.  If  an  emigration  is  large  after  fifty  years  of 
new  government,  not  the  old  but  the  new  is  mainly  answerable 
therefor.  The  family  injured  under  the  previous  regime  is  scat- 
tered, dies.  Where  the  blood  of  the  patriot  fell,  the  corn  blooms 
again  in  the  fields.  An  obnoxious  tax  can  be  removed,  a system 
of  oppression  repealed,  tariffs  revised,  the  vote  given,  schools 
opened.  If  the  old  economic  order  persists,  it  is  because  a half 
century  of  new  government  has  sanctioned  it,  even  though  un- 

1 In  1911,  37.6  per  cent  of  the  population  of  Italy  over  six  years  of  age  were 
illiterate;  in  the  Abruzzi,  Sicily,  Basilicata,  and  Calabria,  the  percentages  were 
respectively  58,  58,  65,  70.  Censimento,  iii,  p.  230. 

2 Villari’s  (P.)  early  article  is  “ La  scuola  e la  quistione  sociale  in  Italia,”  Nuova 
Antologia,  November,  1872,  pp.  477  512.  Among  recent  writings  see  D.  Sam- 
miniatelli,  “ Sulla  istruzione  delle  masse  emigratorie,”  in  Atti  del  Primo  Congresso 
degli  Italiani  all’  Estero,  i,  pp.  407-427,  and  a comprehensive  governmental  study, 
L’istruzione  primaria  e popidare  in  Italia,  Turin,  etc.,  1911. 


5 l6  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

wittingly.  And  what  it  has  sanctioned,  if  it  be  wrong,  it  can  now 
unsanction.  The  demolition  of  reactionary  governments  that 
blocked  the  way  to  progress  is  not  enough.  It  must  be  followed 
by  that  further  effort  which  alone  can  make  over  old  institutions 
or  create  new  ones. 

How  shall  the  expense  of  an  elaborate  programme  of  rehabilita- 
tion be  met  ? Are  these  times  in  which  to  throw  new  burdens 
upon  State  treasuries  ? Is  not  rather  the  lightening  of  taxes  one 
requirement  of  the  new  day  ? Some  equalization  of  taxes  is  as- 
suredly needed,  and  removal  of  the  more  obnoxious  ones,  but  even 
though  a kinder  future  may  make  unnecessary  the  support  of  a 
great  army  during  peace,  the  general  burden  will  enlarge  rather 
than  shrink.  Somehow  the  North  must  contribute  to  the  South 
and  somewhat  the  rich  must  pay  for  the  poor  — the  last,  in  all 
countries,  is  an  inexorable  demand  of  the  transitional  era  that  will 
follow  the  war. 

But  will  not  a scheme  of  State  paternalism  weaken  the  moral 
fiber  of  the  people  ? Of  a well-considered  paternalism  history 
shows  few  examples,  but  those  few  no  one  would  retract.  The 
greatest,  of  course,  is  popular  education.  Coupled  with  demo- 
cratic opportunities  to  rise,  education  has  nothing  to  fear  and 
much  to  hope.  Only  through  a right  education  of  their  younger 
members  can  the  possessing  classes  in  South  Italy  be  led  to  a full 
understanding  of  noblesse  oblige.  Many  of  the  returned  emigrants 
now  bring  an  education  got  by  experience,  and  wrhere  they  are 
numerous  in  a town  they  may  count  for  much.1  But  in  general 
it  is  the  young  who  will  make  Italy.  What  the  children  of  Italian 
parents  have  accomplished  in  Argentina  and  the  United  States 
they  will  accomplish  in  Italy  when  good  schools  give  them  train- 
ing, and  when  the  circumstances  and  institutions  of  their  own 
beautiful  land  tempt  their  initiative,  an  initiative  which  the  spirit 
of  feudalism  will  not  long  withstand.  When  the  liberation  of  Italy 
has  been  followed  by  the  liberation  of  the  Italians,  a great  work 
will  have  been  done. 

1 Many  instances  exist  of  towns  whose  population  fell  sharply  through  emigra- 
tion and  later,  as  emigrants  returned,  exceeded  their  old  levels.  See,  e.g.,  A. 
Fraccacreta,  Le  forme  del  progress o economico  in  Capitanata  (Naples,  1912),  pp.  4 f. 


CONCLUSIONS.  THE  LARGER  TASKS  AHEAD  517 


One  consequence  of  the  coming  of  democratic  institutions, 
unless  all  signs  fail  and  experience  elsewhere  be  disproved,  will  be 
a decline  in  the  birth  rate.  Then  it  should  be  all  the  easier  to 
absorb  at  home  such  increase  of  population  as  will  come.  There 
is  much  to  suggest  that  European  countries  will  generally,  in  this 
regard,  drift  in  the  direction  of  France.  But  such  a consequence 
will  take  many  years  to  run  its  course,  and  meanwhile  a further 
diminution  of  the  death  rate  will  tend  for  a time  to  make  the 
annual  increase  of  the  population  greater,  or  at  least  to  maintain 
its  level.  No  one  can  discern  the  future,  but  it  is  justifiable  to 
expect  that,  as  the  fruit  of  the  changes  suggested,  Italy  will  in 
time  become  a country  of  few  emigrants  and  those  few  of  spe- 
cialized, trained  sorts;  for  such  has  been  the  course  of  several 
great  emigrating  peoples  in  the  past.1 

The  great  external  problem  of  emigration  remains.  It  cannot 
be  left  to  its  own  hazards. 

No  diminution  is  desirable  in  the  programme  of  protection  of 
emigrants  to  which  the  Italian  Government  so  extensively  com- 
mitted itself  in  1901.  Foreign  labor  leaders  have  often  and  ad- 
visedly criticised  that  programme,  holding  its  inevitable  effect  to 
be  a stimulation  of  emigration,  and  Senator  Villari  has  vigorously 
insisted  that  such  provisions  as  those  governing  the  military  serv- 
ice of  emigrants  are  particularly  likely  to  act  as  an  encourage- 
ment to  migrate.  But  these  wholly  just  criticisms  will  lose  their 
force  when  substantial  internal  reforms  have  been  instituted  in 
Italy.  Then  indeed  the  protective  policy  may  be  widened.  Ad- 
vice touching  transoceanic  labor  markets,  labor  disputes,  and  the 
like  should  be  as  freely  provided  as  that  concerning  European 
countries.  The  representations  of  ticket  agents  should  be  still 
further  controlled  or  duly  counterbalanced  by  unbiased  accounts 
of  foreign  conditions.  The  too  extensive  consulates  of  North  and 
South  America  should  be  subdivided.  These  are  but  examples. 
Pantano’s recent  bill,  for  putting  the  Emigration  Service  under  the 

1 It  is  worth  noting  that  in  the  years  before  the  war  Denmark,  Norway,  the 
Netherlands,  and  Prussia  were  countries  having  an  annual  excess  of  births  over 
deaths  considerably  higher  than  that  of  Italy  in  the  same  years. 


5 1 8 ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

control  of  the  Ministry  of  Industry,  Trade,  and  Labor,  denotes 
increasing  realization  that  the  problems  of  protection  are  largely 
technical. 

Within  narrow  yet  important  limits,  Italy  is  in  a position  to 
compel  the  adoption  of  certain  standards  of  protection  on  the  part 
of  foreign  countries.  The  suspension  of  emigration  to  Brazil  by 
the  Prinetti  decree  was  the  sequel  to  vain  efforts  to  persuade  that 
country  to  safeguard  her  immigrants.  When,  several  years  later, 
attempts  were  made  to  have  the  ban  lifted,  but  no  guarantees 
were  offered,  the  Emigration  Council,  upon  Bodio’s  recommenda- 
tion, voted  to  keep  the  restrictions  in  force.  Later,  as  we  know, 
the  state  of  Sao  Paulo,  eager  for  plantation  hands,  established  a 
system  of  protection. 

Quite  as  interesting  is  the  reaction  upon  Italy  when  it  is  the 
country  of  immigration  that  has  the  higher  standards.  Tre- 
mendous has  been  the  influence  exerted  by  the  United  States 
through  its  ever  more  selective  laws.  It  is  widely  realized  that  the 
emigrant  must  have  or  acquire  certain  qualifications  for  admission 
to  this  country,  and  the  lawmakers  of  Italy  have  been  constantly 
watchful  to  fit  their  compatriots  for  departure,  all  the  more  since 
emigration  is  deemed  necessary.  Here  is  a lever  that  may  yet 
work  great  internal  reforms. 

Let  me  cite  a striking  example  and  episode.  So  much  had  the 
literacy  test  bill,  finally  enacted  in  1917,  been  assailed  by  idealists 
in  the  United  States  — it  had  likewise  been  vetoed  by  three  presi- 
dents — that  the  repercussions  in  Italy  of  its  many  vicissitudes  in 
Congress  deserve  to  be  noted.  When  enactment  seemed  likely  in 
1903,  the  Minister  of  Public  Instruction  asked  the  Commissioner- 
General  of  Emigration  for  a subsidy  of  50,000  lire  — meager  to 
be  sure!  — toward  an  appropriation  of  150,000,  to  help  instruct 
illiterates  in  one  thousand  communes.  The  Committee  of  Vig- 
ilance, convinced  that  the  United  States  would  act,  sanctioned  the 
proposal.  But  the  American  Congress  voted  in  the  negative.  At 
a session  of  the  Council  of  Emigration,  in  March,  1904,  Sig.  Luz- 
zatti,  presiding,  said:  “ For  the  present  we  are  not  threatened  by 
the  Jaw;  but  the  danger  may  return,  hence  we  ought  to  be  fore- 


CONCLUSIONS.  THE  LARGER  TASKS  AHEAD  519 


handed  in  preparing  this  rapid-fire  instruction.”  Sig.  Bodio 
agreed  that  “ Now  the  danger  is  less  pressing,”  and  the  Council 
voted  not  to  grant  the  appropriation.1  In  February,  1904,  the 
Council  reversed  its  decision  and  in  that  year,  as  we  know,  a 
very  modest  measure  was  enacted  establishing  schools  in  certain 
regions  whose  people  emigrated  mainly  to  the  United  States.2  In 
the  following  year  the  special  appropriation  for  illiterates  in  emi- 
gration centers  was  omitted.  Agitation  in  America  continued. 
In  July,  1905,  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  declared  to  the 
Senate,  “ It  is  now  certain  that,  in  one  form  or  another,  defensive 
action  will  be  taken  against  undesirable  immigration  . . . there- 
fore we  should  not  neglect  to  diffuse  schooling  in  those  provinces 
which  send  illiterate  emigrants  to  America.” 3 

In  1913  the  bill  again  seemed  likely  to  pass  in  the  American 
Congress.  Again  the  Italian  emigration  authorities  were  asked  to 
make  an  appropriation  and  again  the  vote  was  affirmative.  And 
this  time  the  American  Congress  accepted  the  literacy  test  bill,  but 
Mr.  Taft  promptly  vetoed  it.  “ Hence  the  Commissioner-General 
no  longer  had  to  concern  himself  with  the  matter,”  reads  an 
Italian  report.4  The  Italian  newspapers  in  the  United  States 
jubilantly  hailed  the  President’s  action.5  But  the  following  year 
the  bill  was  again  before  Congress,  and  in  the  Italian  Emigration 
Council  the  necessity  was  again  urged  of  freeing  the  people  of 
Italy  “ from  a danger  which  will  not  always  remain  in  a state  of 
mere  threat”  (C.  Corradini),  and  the  shame  of  Italy  was  pointed 

1 See  “Rendiconti  delle  sedute  del  Consiglio  dell’  Emigrazione  tenute  nell’  anno 
1903,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1904,  No.  9,  p.  64. 

2 “ Rendiconti  sommari  delle  sedute  . . . nell’  anno  1904,”  Boll.  Emig.,  1904, 
No.  10,  pp.  34-36;  cf.  Boll.  Emig.,  1906,  No.  13,  pp.  20  f. 

3 T.  Tittoni,  Boll.  Emig.,  1905,  No.  16,  p.  30. 

4 “ Proibizione  dello  sbarco  negli  Stati  Uniti  agli  stranieri  analfabeti,”  Boll. 
Emig.,  1915,  Nos.  10-12,  p.  126. 

5 Ibid.,  p.  119.  An  editorial  of  the  Rivisla  Coloniale  (February  16-28,  1913,  p. 

1 13),  noting  that  only  five  votes  were  lacking  to  pass  the  measure  over  the  veto, 
urged  the  government  to  keep  in  mind  this  “ threat,”  so  that  if  enactment  came,  the 
harm  to  Italian  emigration  would  be  reduced  to  the  smallest  proportions.  Cf.  G. 
Preziosi,  “ La  proibizione  dello  sbarco  agli  analfabeti  negli  Stati  Uniti  dell’  America 
del  Nord,”  Vita  Italiana  all’  Estero,  February,  1913,  pp.  99- 1 14.  More  enlightened 
views  on  the  ulterior  effects  of  education  are  those  of  L.  Villari,  Gli  Stati  Uniti, 
pp.  304  f.,  and  Starace,  p.  45. 


520 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


out  in  allowing  her  illiterate  emigrants  to  the  United  States  to  be 
as  numerous  relatively  as  those  from  Turkey  (A.  Cabrini),  and 
it  was  voted  that  the  Commissioner-General  take  any  measures 
necessary  to  overcome  illiteracy.1  Then  came  the  war,  paralyzing 
all  action. 

Mr.  Wilson’s  two  vetoes  of  the  bill  were  followed  by  its  final 
passage  over  his  veto  in  1917.  Is  it  not  likely  that  ear  her  enact- 
ment would  have  given  the  greatly  needed  spur  to  the  extension  of 
popular  schooling  in  Italy  ? 

The  essential  problems  of  emigration  and  immigration  are  very 
old.  The  termini  of  migration  have  ever  had  to  deal  with  such 
matters  as  the  retention  of  necessary  kinds  of  labor  or  of  soldiers, 
the  costs  of  looking  after  newcomers,  supporting  the  poor,  pro- 
tecting resident  workers,  and  avoiding  large  sudden  increases  of 
population.  In  the  Middle  Ages  the  towns  put  formal  impedi- 
ments in  the  way  of  migration,  or  exacted  taxes,  like  the  gabella 
emigrationis  or  the  detractus  personalis , and  so  far  they  acted  much 
as  modern  governments  have  done.  But  sometimes,  also,  the  towns 
had  recorded  agreements  which  amicably  exchanged  advantage 
for  advantage  or  set  off  disadvantages  against  each  other. 

The  method  of  agreement  has  had  numerous  modern  applica- 
tions also,  though  generally  very  restricted  in  their  scope.  Italy 
herself  has  been  a party  to  various  conventions  and  some  men  in 
Italy  (notably  Luzzatti)  have  warmly  championed  them.  There 
have  been,  for  instance,  the  Italo-French  agreement  of  June  9, 
1906,  giving  to  Italians  in  France  and  to  Frenchmen  in  Italy 
equivalent  rights  to  compensation  for  industrial  accident  injuries; 
the  Italo-French  convention  of  June  10, 1910,  for  the  protection  of 
child  workers  of  the  two  nations,  requiring  consular  certificates  or 
parental  permission  for  work  and  setting  up  committees  in  the 
major  industrial  centers,  on  which  the  children’s  countrymen  are 
represented,  to  see  to  the  enforcement  of  general  labor  laws;  and 
the  Italo-German  convention  of  July  31,  1912,  providing  for  the 
compensation  of  workers  disabled  through  accident,  invalidity  or 

1 “ Rendiconti  delle  adunanze  del  Consiglio  dell’  Emigrazione,”  Boll.  Emig., 
1915,  Nos.  10-12,  pp.  17-33- 


CONCLUSIONS.  THE  LARGER  TASKS  AHEAD  $2 1 


age.1  Generally  these  treaties  have  had  no  other  object  in  view 
than  the  protection  of  laborers,  but  in  some  quarters,  proposals 
have  been  rife  that  Italy  should  act  somewhat  as  a gigantic  trade 
union,  selling  her  labor  to  the  highest  bidder,  and  especially  should 
aim  to  serve  her  political  ends.2 

Here  indeed  a large  question  is  raised,  bringing  us  face  to  face 
with  the  whole  post-bellum  situation.  What,  in  the  years  to 
come,  are  to  be  the  tendencies  of  emigration  ? What  will  be  the 
needs  of  countries  ? What  chances  of  clash  will  arise  ? And 
what  should  be  done  ? 

There  will  be  reconstruction,  slow  doubtless  rather  than  fast,  of 
most  areas  devastated  by  war;  and  some  fairly  extensive  new 
regions  may  be  opened  for  settlement.  If  not  at  first,  certainly 
later,  Italy  will  again  have  a great  emigration  (it  will  at  best  take 
many  years  for  internal  reforms  to  check  the  flow  substantially). 
The  probability  exists  that  here  and  there  among  the  other  bel- 
ligerent nations,  people  will  seek  homes  or  wages  in  other  lands, 
perhaps  on  a far-reaching  scale. 

Even,  however,  if  these  portentous  new  forces,  vaguely  as  they 
must  be  defined  today,  had  not  come  into  being,  enough  ground 
has  existed  in  the  ante-bellum  situation  to  warrant  the  calling  of 
an  international  conference  to  suggest  legislation  by  the  great 
countries.3  The  discontent  roused  by  immigration  in  various 

1 L.  de  Feo,  I Irattati  di  lavoro  e la  protezione  del  nostri  lavoranti  all ’ estero,  Milan, 
1916  (an  excellent  discussion,  with  various  texts) ; G.  Valentini-Fersini,  Protezione  e 
legislazione  interna zionale  del  lavoro,  prodromi  di  un  diritto  internazionale  operaio, 
Milan,  etc.,  1909-10;  L.  Luzzatti,  “ Nota  sul  trattato  lavoro  tra  l’ltalia  e la 
Francia,”  Nnova  Antologia,  January  16,  1916,  pp.  169-179.  For  certain  texts,  see 
also  Bollettino  dell’  Ufficio  del  Lavoro,  July,  1910,  pp.  166-169;  Boll.  Emig.,  1913, 
No.  s,  pp.  81-88,  No.  8,  pp.  42-48. 

2 Ferri  so  argued  in  1909.  A fairly  typical  recent  discussion  of  its  sort  is  G.  E.  di 
Vallelonga,  “ La  politica  dell’  emigrazione  italiana  dopo  la  guerra,”  Vita  Italiana, 
May  15,  1916,  pp.  404-410. 

3 The  idea  of  international  regulation  of  migration  is  not  new,  but  I do  not  know 
that  it  was  proposed  before  1897,  when  the  International  Law  Institute  of  Ghent 
met  at  Copenhagen.  It  has  been  often  suggested  since,  but  never  with  much  backing 
until  our  own  Congress,  rather  mildly,  in  1907,  and  the  Italian  emigrant  congresses 
sponsored  it.  See  also  J.  D.  Whelpley,  The  Problem  of  the  Immigrant  (London, 
1905),  ch.  2,  and  Preziosi,  II  problema  del l’  Italia  d’oggi,  pp.  195-199. 


522 


ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 


countries  is  the  first  reason  for  calling  such  a conference.  But 
also  the  desire  of  the  nations,  prompted  by  humanitarian  consid- 
erations, further  to  protect  emigrants  and  immigrants,  tends  to 
increase  emigration,  and  so  intensifies  the  discontent  with  which 
immigrants  are  regarded.  Such  a conference  could  neither  legis- 
late nor  dictate.  Single  states  would  still  act  independently,  being 
governed  by  their  special  interests,  and  agreements  between  two 
countries  would  still  be  sought  in  order  to  secure  mutual  advan- 
tages. But  in  many  matters,  single  states  are  helpless;  and  two 
cannot  come  to  agreement,  one  having  a favor  to  grant,  the  other 
being  a beggar.  When  all,  however,  act  with  regard  to  each 
other  there  is  a chance  of  so  reordering  the  sum  of  advantages  and 
disadvantages  that  an  improved  general  arrangement  may  result. 

The  topics  of  international  consequence  which  such  a con- 
ference would  discuss  — and  I assume  that  the  laboring  classes 
themselves  would  be  prominently  represented  in  it  — are  four: 

(1)  The  adoption  of  standards  of  fitness  for  emigrants.  What 
bodily,  moral,  and  educational  or  other  restrictions  should  be  put 
upon  the  freedom  to  migrate  ? The  answer  to  this  question  meas- 
ures the  extent  to  which  a nation  shall  be  deemed  to  have  obli- 
gations towards  those  born  into  its  fellowship.  It  is,  for  example, 
not  desirable  that  Italians,  found  unacceptable  to  the  medical 
officers  at  the  ports  of  embarkation,  should  yet  depart  clandes- 
tinely and  be  admitted  elsewhere,  nor  that  individuals  debarred 
from  one  country  on  grounds  of  health  should  find  their  way  to 
other  countries.  The  costs  of  properly  safeguarding  emigrants 
in  the  countries  where  they  go  should  help  to  determine  the 
standards. 

(2)  The  distribution  of  fit  emigrants.  What  facilities  should  be 
created  for  enabling  men  who  seek  homes  or  wages  to  discover  the 
most  suitable  destinations  ? There  is  question  here  not  merely  of 
preventing  such  congestion  in  special  centers  as  has  so  often  been 
the  object  of  complaint  in  the  United  States,  but  of  performing 
a true  international  labor  exchange  function.  Greater  economy 
in  the  employment  of  birds  of  passage  might  result  and  better 
conditions  for  them.  The  construction  of  public  works  in  distant 
and  undeveloped  places  could  be  facilitated,  and  that  agricultural 


CONCLUSIONS.  THE  LARGER  TASKS  AHEAD  523 


emigration  disciplined  which  utilizes  the  seasons  in  both  the 
Northern  and  Southern  Hemispheres,  or  which  moves  between 
neighboring  countries  — - like  that  which  during  the  Great  War 
arose  between  Brazil  and  Argentina.  It  is  possible,  too,  that  a 
world  which  during  that  war  performed  such  prodigies  of  experi- 
ment will  take  more  kindly  to  certain  adventures  in  the  matter  of 
emigration.  When  once  the  whole  emigration  movement  is 
brought  under  control,  various  countries  which  now  chiefly  desire 
to  stem  the  tide  may  be  willing  to  try  experiments  (for  example, 
in  a conditioned  agricultural  colonization),  so  developing  a new 
accommodation  of  aptitude  and  skill  to  environments  where  they 
are  lacking.  An  invaluable  statistical  organization  might  grow  up 
in  connection  with  such  an  international  service. 

(3)  Citizenship.  What  shall  be  the  rights  of  emigrants  in  the 
matter  of  allegiance  to  country  ? In  the  special  sanctions  which 
an  international  labor  exchange  office  might  provide  there  is  some 
chance  of  reconciling  such  conflicting  desires  as  that  of  the  Italian 
who  merely  wishes  to  earn  abroad  and  the  American  who  wishes 
him  to  be  absorbed.  Yet  this  is  but  a single  aspect  of  the  problem. 
Italy  is  not  the  only  country  which  exacts  certain  duties  from  her 
sons  naturalized  abroad  and  their  children  born  to  another  citizen- 
ship. The  conflict  in  its  present  terms  is  an  absurd  one,  provoca- 
tive of  much  worry  on  the  part  of  individuals  already  much 
harassed;  and  the  means  to  at  least  its  partial  extinction  are 
unquestionably  within  the  reach  of  debate. 

(4)  The  protection  of  emigrants.  What  action,  public  or  private, 
shall  the  states  take  in  sheltering  the  emigrants  from  the  dangers 
that  surround  them  ? It  is  clear  that  a certain  minimum  of  police 
aid  is  indispensable  and  yet  is  lacking  today.  By  internationally 
coordinated  arrangements  a vast  deal  can  be  done.  Above  all, 
control  is  needed  over  the  routes  and  conveyances  of  travel.  The 
journeys  which  in  every  year  of  peace  many  thousands  of  emi- 
grants make  to  the  United  States  and  other  countries,  only  to  be 
refused  admission,  should  by  due  administrative  devices  be  ren- 
dered less  frequent.  The  simple  scheme  some  years  ago  of  station- 
ing United  States  medical  officers  at  Naples  saved  innumerable 
needless  journeys.  Again,  the  means  must  be  found  of  assuring 


524  ITALIAN  EMIGRATION  OF  OUR  TIMES 

certain  rather  primary  kinds  of  protection  of  emigrants  in  the 
countries  where  they  go.  No  citizen  of  the  United  States  can  take 
pride  in  the  situation  revealed  a decade  ago  in  the  Maiorano  case, 
in  which  compensation  for  the  death  of  her  husband,  employed  on 
an  American  railway,  was  refused  to  a widow  because  she  was 
residing  abroad  — notwithstanding  the  contention  of  the  Italian 
Foreign  Minister  that  the  decision  of  the  United  States  Supreme 
Court  violated  treaty  stipulations.  As  a rule  the  more  adequate 
the  protection  provided,  the  more  costly  it  is;  and  many  dangers 
will  long  elude  our  efforts.  The  more  costly  the  protection  in 
turn,  the  more  we  shall  be  led  to  restate  the  minimum  standards 
of  fitness  for  emigrants. 

What  finally  shall  be  thought  of  those  who  wish  to  transform 
the  Italian  emigrant  empire  into  a political  empire  ? Does  not 
the  world  today  stand  surfeited  with  imperialism  ? 

For  those  schemes  of  State  aided  emigration  and  colonization 
which  the  classic  world  knew,  much  of  a surety  can  be  urged. 
They  gave  an  opportunity  for  the  organic  extension  of  the  com- 
monwealth. If  in  truth  a new  era  were  now  to  be  at  hand  in  which 
national  aspirations  would  find  no  opportunity  for  exaggerated 
developments  into  imperalism,  it  would  none  the  less  — but  per- 
haps rather  the  more  — be  true  that  the  principle  of  nationality 
should  be  encouraged,  for  nothing  else  can  take  its  place  as  a 
bulwark  against  the  commonplaces  of  cosmopolitanism.  The 
immigration  of  the  people  of  one  country  into  another  breeds 
grave  problems  and  ultimately  means  absorption,  without  even 
any  considerable  and  palpable  legacy  from  the  disappearing  na- 
tionality. The  Italian  people  are  one  of  the  priceless  assets  of  the 
world.  What  the  world  may  gain  by  making  Italian  emigrants 
and  their  children  into  citizens  of  other  countries  is  as  nothing 
compared  with  what  it  may  gain  from  continuing  in  a Greater 
Italy  their  language,  their  traditions,  their  finest  spirit  as  it 
breathes  in  the  arts  of  civilization. 

Here  is  not  an  aspiration  to  be  put  down.  So  much  of  the  world 
is  now  given  over  to  peoples  whose  contributions  to  human  his- 
tory, however  treasurable,  are  certainly  less  rich  and  less  promis- 


CONCLUSIONS.  THE  LARGER  TASKS  AHEAD  525 


ing  than  those  of  the  Italians,  so  much  also  is  given  over  to 
development  by  peoples  of  other  European  nationality  who  leave 
no  corner  which  emigrants  from  Italy  can  call  their  very  own, 
that  a claim  for  a larger  Italy,  whether  in  North  Africa  or  western 
Asia,  deserves  to  be  heard.  Tripoli  is  not  likely  to  meet  the  need. 
Tunisia,  hardly  necessary  to  stationary  France,  and  already 
mainly  peopled  by  Italians  (except  for  African  stock),  would 
serve  admirably.  (May  the  means  yet  be  found  of  conveying  it  to 
Italy !)  There  is  here  no  argument  for  conferring  a great  empire. 
There  is  only  question  of  providing  an  outlet  for  that  population 
which  will  not,  if  the  most  be  done,  be  quite  adjusted  to  its  own 
peninsula  and  islands  for  many  years  to  come.  This  is  that  im- 
perialismo  della  povera  gente  which  no  well-wisher  of  humanity  can 
begrudge  such  a people  as  the  Italian. 


APPENDIX 


APPENDIX 


MEMORANDA  SUPPLEMENTARY  TO  BOOK  I 
i.  INTENSITY  OF  EMIGRATION 

Average  Annual  Number  of  Emigrants  per  10,000  Inhabitants, 

ACCORDING  TO  THE  POPULATION  CALCULATED  FOR  THE 

Middle  of  Each  Period 


(Data  of  the  Bureau  of  Statistics  compiled  by  the  Commissioner-General  of 
Emigration.  See  Boll.  Emig.,  1910,  No.  18,  p.  5.) 


1876-1886 

1887-1900 

1901-1909 

Piedmont 

96 

85 

162 

Liguria 

59 

43 

60 

Lombardy  

53 

53 

113 

Venetia  

134 

324 

298 

Emilia  

23 

50 

133 

Tuscany 

40 

57 

117 

Marches 

IO 

42 

204 

Umbria  

o-5 

IO 

144 

Latium 

o-5 

IO 

98 

Abruzzi  and  Molise  

31 

102 

337 

Campania  

34 

96 

222 

Apulia  

3-9 

17 

IO4 

Basilicata 

108 

184 

305 

Calabria 

44 

115 

308 

Sicily  

7 

44 

210 

Sardinia 

i-5 

7 

62 

All  Itafy 

47 

87 

179 

529 


530 


APPENDIX 


2.  AGE,  SEX,  AND  DEPARTURE  UNACCOMPANIED 
BY  MEMBERS  OF  FAMILY 

(Compiled  from  the  official  summaries  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1910,  No.  18,  pp.  490-495, 
and  from  Statistica  della  emigrazionc  for  1910  and  1911,  p.  xv.) 

In  10,000  emigrants,  there  were: 


Periods  for  which 
annual  averages  are 
computed 

Males 

Persons  not  older 
than  15  years 

Persons  younger 
than  J4  years 

Persons  not 
accompanied  by 
members  of 
their  families 

1876-1878 

8641 

921 

7659 

1884-1886 

8263 

1078 

6924 

1894-1896 

7717 

1618 

5932 

1904- 1906 

8230 

io59 

7967 

Years 

1907 

8152 

1025 

8093 

1908 

00 

to 

996 

8134 

1909 

8116 

1029 

7903 

1910 

8154 

1067 

7869 

I9II 

8073 

1038 

7868 

APPENDIX 


531 


3.  OCCUPATIONS 


Number  of  Males  and  of  Females  in  each  Occupation  per 
10,000  Emigrants  of  Each  Class  above  the  Age  of  15 


Periods  for 
which  annual 
averages  are 
computed 

Workers  employed  in  agri- 
culture, dairying,  gardening, 
forestry,  and  related  under- 
takings 

Common  day  laborers  em- 
ployed in  excavation  and 
in  road  and  waterway  con- 
struction 

Masons,  hodcarriers,  stone- 
cutters, furnace  workers, 
and  others  employed  in  the 
building  trades 

Workers  employed  in  other 
industries  (mining,  metal- 
lurgy, glass,  textiles,  etc.) 
and  artisans  (carpenters, 
shoemakers,  tailors,  bar- 
bers, etc.) 

In  the  liberal  professions 
(physicians,  apothecaries, 
lawyers,  engineers,  teachers) 

Jn  other  and  unknown  or 
indefinite  occupations 

1878-1880 

Male 

4181 

2133 

1624 

1186 

71 

805 

Female 

5774 

1287 

65 

1089 

73 

1712 

1884-1886 

Male 

4893 

2284 

1413 

780 

59 

571 

Female 

5754 

1417 

103 

1047 

54 

1625 

1894-1896 

Male 

447i 

2564 

1735 

623 

63 

544 

Female 

6330 

1482 

1 1 2 

610 

76 

1390 

1904-1906 

Male 

3587 

3221 

1312 

1166 

32 

682 

Female 

3183 

1376 

95 

1446 

35 

3865 

Years 

1907 

Male 

3477 

3195 

1361 

1227 

37 

703 

Female 

2775 

1343 

95 

1656 

48 

4083 

1908 

Male 

32  97 

3473 

1507 

1081 

42 

600 

Female 

2464 

1559 

162 

1510 

39 

4266 

1909 

Male 

3618 

3512 

1161 

1026 

37 

646 

Female 

2656 

1355 

141 

1447 

32 

4369 

For  this  table  I have  drawn  upon  a compilation  made  by  the  Com- 
missioner-General of  Emigration  and  published  in  Boll.  Emig.,  1910, 
No.  18,  pp.  504-511.  The  figures  for  1884-86  and  1894-96  are  for 
emigrants  above  the  age  of  14. 

The  annual  reports  of  the  Bureau  of  Statistics  do  not  give  the  occu- 
pational classification  according  to  sex,  but  they  do  give  the  occupa- 
tional groups  in  greater  detail.  The  agricultural  and  day  labor  groups, 
taken  together,  were  in  the  years  1910  and  1911  respectively  62.4 
and  59.9  per  cent.  The  building  trades  workers  were  12.0  and 
13.6  per  cent.  In  miscellaneous  industries  and  crafts  were  11.3  and 
11.8  per  cent.  Hotel  and  restaurant  keepers,  and  dealers  in  food,  were 
each  1.0  per  cent.  Waiters  and  the  like  were  1.2  and  1.3  per  cent. 


532 


APPENDIX 


Itinerant  traders  were  .6  per  cent  in  each  year,  numbering  about  3000  a 
year.  In  domestic  service  were  2.5  and  2.9  per  cent.  See  Statistica 
della  emigrazione  for  1910  and  1911,  p.  xiv. 

A good  discussion  of  some  of  the  bearings  of  occupation  is  by  L. 
Marchetti,  “ L’emigration  dans  ses  rapports  avec  l’occupation  des 
travailleurs,”  Bulletin  de  VInstitut  Internationale  pour  la  Lutte  contre  le 
Chomage,  July-September,  1912,  pp.  553-573. 

4.  THE  INTERNAL  MIGRATION  OF  ITALY 

The  internal  movement  depends  upon  the  extraordinary  agricultural 
differences  that  obtain  between  even  neighboring  regions  of  Italy. 
These  in  turn  follow  natural  diversities  of  altitude,  slope,  soil,  and  sea- 
son. 

The  first  period  of  migration  runs  from  January  to  the  end  of  April. 
Central  and  southern  Italy  are  involved.  The  operations  are  pruning 
grapevines,  loosening  the  ground  about  their  roots,  caring  for  olive 
trees,  sowing  grain,  and  preparing  the  soil  in  the  rice  fields.  At  the  same 
time  brickmakers  go  to  the  ovens  of  Piedmont,  Lombardy,  and  the  out- 
skirts of  Rome.  Masons  and  hodcarriers  go  from  Varese  and  Biella  to 
Milan  and  Turin.  In  1910  the  migrants  of  this  period  numbered  nearly 
100,000. 

A second,  the  chief,  period  extends  from  early  May  to  mid-August. 
Agricultural  work  abounds  and  is  of  a kind  requiring  many  hands.  The 
soil  must  be  turned  over  for  the  grains,  the  vineyards  irrigated,  the 
first  hay  mown,  the  mulberry  trees  stripped  and  pruned,  silkworms 
raised,  barley  and  bean  crops  harvested,  wheat  and  oats  reaped  and 
threshed.  Especially  do  the  cultivation  of  rice  and  the  reaping  of  grain 
demand  new  labor.  Between  May  10  and  May  20  throngs  of  workers 
of  both  sexes  descend  from  Alps  and  Apennines  to  the  lowlands  of  the 
Po  for  the  silk  growing.  Late  in  May  the  rice  huskers  complete  their 
tasks.  In  1910  the  May  migrants  numbered  100,000,  the  June  mi- 
grants 150,000.  By  June  20,  fully  a quarter  of  a million  people  are  at 
work  in  other  communes  than  their  own.  They  begin  then  to  go  home ; 
so  do  others  who  had  left  their  homes  in  fall  or  winter.  July  calls  a 
special  contingent  to  the  mountains  for  the  grain  harvests.  Many  of 
those  who  return  in  July  and  August  have  been  absent  for  ten  months. 
The  brickmakers  stay  through  September,  the  masons  till  November. 

The  third  period  begins  at  the  end  of  August  and  lasts  through 
December.  The  mowing  calls,  and  the  rice  harvest,  with  its  threshing 


APPENDIX 


533 


and  drying  operations.  To  North  and  South  go  the  vintagers.  In 
Sicily  and  the  South  emigrants  go  to  harvest  olives,  oranges,  and 
lemons.  Woodcutters  and  charcoal  burners  go  into  Sardinia  and  the 
Roman  and  Tuscan  maremmas.  The  herdsmen  take  their  summer 
charges  down  to  the  plains.  There  is  an  agricultural  emigration  to 
certain  great  malarial  districts  (the  maremmas,  the  Apulian  plain,  the 
Ionian  coast  of  Calabria)  not  worked  in  the  warmer  season.  Some  of 
the  emigrants  of  this  period  go  home  for  Christmas,  either  finally  or 
for  a respite;  others  tarry  till  the  spring. 

In  1910  the  emigrants  officially  recorded  were  559,434;  in  some 
years  there  have  been  more.  Apulia  accounts  for  a fifth;  Sicily,  Pied- 
mont, Lombardy,  Emilia,  Latium,  Campania,  Abruzzi,  Tuscany, 
Calabria  are  other  great  sources.  Of  the  rice  weeders  in  Novara  and 
Pavia  three-fourths  are  young  women.  In  1912  they  cleared  about  90 
lire  each,  in  forty  workdays  of  ten  hours.  The  41,741  rice  cultivators 
in  Novara  and  Pavia  averaged  less  chan  100  lire  in  forty  days.  Of  these 
workers  17,062  came  by  train,  17,860  by  train  and  cart,  4376  by  cart 
only,  3541  afoot;  the  mode  of  coming  was  not  recorded  for  6902. 

There  is  no  indication  that  this  migration  is  coming  to  an  end.  The 
greater  use  of  machinery  may  some  day  diminish  it,  but  till  now  ma- 
chinery has  often  been  hard  to  apply  — as,  for  example,  on  the  uneven 
agro  romano  — or  has  encountered  too  rigid  a tradition. 

On  the  whole  subject  see  the  admirable  study  by  Dr.  L.  Marchetti, 
“Die  inneren  jahreszeitlichen  Wanderungen  der  Landarbeiter  und  die 
landwirtschaftlichen  Stellenvermittlungsamter  in  Italien,”  Zeitschrift 
fiir  Socialwissenschaft,  September  and  October,  1914,  pp.  605-617,  683- 
693.  In  the  publications  of  the  Ufficio  dell’  Lavoro  are  various  contri- 
butions, especially  Le  correnti  periodiche  di  migrazione  in  Italia  durante 
il  1905,  Rome,  1907. 


INDICES 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  INDEX 


Since  a large  majority  of  the  works  utilized  have  mainly  a specific  interest,  the  footnotes  of  the 
separate  chapters  may  take  the  place  of  a classified  bibliography.  This  index  is  essentially  a 
reference  list,  the  first  page  cited  under  an  author  or  a title  supplying  the  full  bibliographical 
detail. 

Where  the  authorship  of  a work  has  not  been  given  or  is  not  clear,  the  title,  commonly  abbreviated, 
has  been  utilized  instead.  But  if,  in  such  a case,  the  work  has  been  published  in  a magazine,  the  name 
of  the  latter  has  alone  been  given.  Anonymous  articles  and  official  studies  of  an  occasional  nature, 
published  in  the  Bolleltino  dell’  Emigrazione,  especially  when  they  have  been  referred  to  only  once  in 
this  book,  have  not  been  listed  at  all. 

General  works.  Only  those  that  have  been  found  useful  for  my  purposes  have  been  referred  to  in 
the  text.  Two  others  of  some  scope  may  be  named  here:  R.  Le  Conte,  Etude  sur  l’  emigration  italienne, 
Paris,  1908;  P.  E.  De  Luca,  Della  emigrazione  europea  ed  in  particolare  di  quella  italiana,  4 vols.,  Turin, 
igio. 

Guide  books  for  emigrants.  An  extremely  interesting  series  has  appeared.  Besides  those  referred 
to  in  connection  with  the  text,  others  deserve  mention  as  being  typical  of  their  class:  D.  G.  Curti,  La 
chiave  della  fortuna  ossia  manuale  pratico  dell'  emigrante  e dell’  emigrato  italiano  in  America,  2d  ed. 
Turin,  1908;  Ufficio  del  Lavoro  della  Societa  Umanitaria,  Guida  degli  emigranli  nella  Lombardia, 
Milan,  1909  (for  internal  seasonal  migrants);  J.  F.  Carr,  Guida  degli  Stati  Uniti  per  V immigrante 
italiano,  New  York,  1910  (an  English  version  was  published  in  1911);  Anon.,  Consigli  agli  emigranti  — 
vade-mecum  per  gl'  italiani  agli  Stati  Uniti,  Florence,  1912;  P.  A.  Sardella,  V emigrante,  3d  ed.,  Lecco, 
1912. 

Italians  in  France.  An  admirable  monograph  has  come  to  my  hands  too  late  to  be  referred  to 
in  the  text : A.  C.  de  Canisy,  L’ouvrier  dans  les  mines  de  fer  du  bassin  de  Brie y,  Paris,  1914. 


Acritelli,  P.,  375. 

Adams,  C.,  323. 

Aguet,  J.,  92. 

Albarracin,  S.  J.,  233,  237,  247. 
Albertini,  L.,  239,  260. 

Aldrovandi,  C.,  211. 

Aldrovandi,  L.,  350,  390. 

Alessio,  G.,  93. 

Alfonso,  N.  R.  d’,  56. 

Almanacco  enciclopedico  italo-americano, 

364- 

Alongi,  G.,  72,  73. 

Alsina,  J.  A.,  La  inmigracion  europea, 
227,  232,  233,  234;  Poblacion ,_  241; 
El  obrero,  269,  273;  La  inmigracion  en 
la  primer  siglo,  277. 

Alvarez,  J.,  273. 

Amiris,  E.  de,  In  America,  236,  248,  424, 
430,444;  Cuore,  435 ; On  Blue  Water, 
437,  438,  5°4- 
Ancarano,  A.,  207. 

Ancarini,  U.,  309. 

Andree,  K.,  227,  253,  259. 

Anniversario  dell’  istituto  . . . Scala- 
brini,  Nel  XXV,  485. 

Anthony,  K.,  381,  390. 

Arbeitsnachweis  in  Deutschland , 165. 


Area,  F.,  54,  58,  65. 

Argentine  Republic,  Memoria  de  la  Di- 
rection de  Inmigracion,  16;  Segundo 
censo  (1895),  228,  229,  232,  233,  260, 
262;  Agricultural  Census  (1908),  230 
234,  277;  Ministerio  de  Agricultura, 
Memoria,  233;  La  provincia  de  Entre 
Rios,  233,  238;  Censo  industrial  (1908- 
14),  260. 

Arrivabene-Valenti-Gonzaga,  C.,  213. 

Aschieri,  C.  A.,  15,  20. 

Atti  della  Giunta  per  la  Inchiesta  Agraria, 
see  Inchiesta  Agraria. 

Atti  della  Societa  per  gli  Studi  della 
Malaria,  61. 

Attolico,  B.,  “ Sui  campi  di  lavoro,”  359; 
La  “ Society  for  Italian  Immigrants,” 
407;  “ L’  agricoltura  . . . Canada,” 
3°4- 

Auerbach,  B.,  190. 

Auge-Laribe,  141. 

Austria,  27,  189,  191,  192,  198. 

A.  W.,  164,  183. 

Baccelli,  G.  P.,  335. 

Baglio,  G.,  Ricerche  sul  lavoro,  86; 
“ Monografia  di  famiglia,”  87,  98. 


537 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  INDEX 


538 

Bainotti,  P.,  205. 

Baldioli-Chiorando,  P.,  11,  no,  125,  432, 
446. 

Banchetti,  G.,  359,  363. 

Bandini,  P.,  364. 

Barclay,  T.,  499. 

Barnes,  C.  B.,  356, 357,365,402,404,408. 
Barni,  G.,  187,  419,  500. 

Barni,  G.  and  Canevascini,  G.,  174,  183. 
Baroli,  P.,  194,  200,  201. 
Baroncelli-Grosson,  P.,  273,  317. 
Barrows,  S.  J.,  363,  407. 

Bartels,  J.  H.,  101. 

Bartoli,  C.,  168. 

Basel,  178. 

Basso,  G.,  178. 

Battaglia,  A.,  72. 

Battisti,  C.,  193. 

Beauregard,  F.,  208. 

Beccaria  Incisa,  E.,  Report  on  Berlin 
district,  160, 163;  “La Rumania,”  209. 
Beck,  F.  O.,  386. 

Beck-Bernard,  C.,  233,  236. 
Beck-Bernard,  L.,  271. 

Beneduce,  A.,  “Saggio  di  statistica,”  31, 
42;  “Capitali  sottratti,”  472;  “ Capi- 
tal! personali,”  473. 

Bennett,  F.,  308. 

Berio,  B.,  Relazione  still’  emigrazione 
delle  donne,  137,  138,  144,  146;  “I 
ragazzi  italiani . . . Lionese,”  146,  149. 
Bernardez,  M.,  290,  298,  316. 
Bernardy,  A.  A.,  “ Alcuni  aspetti  . . . 
Basilea,”  22,  179,  185,  186,  187; 
“ L’  Italia  a Marsiglia,”  136,  144; 
“ L’  emigrazione  . . . Piemonte,”  146, 
513;  “ Sulle  condizioni  delle  donne,” 
385;  Italia  randagia,  385,  390;  Amer- 
ica vissuta,  394,  395,  409. 

Bernhard,  E.,  165. 

Bertarelli,  E.,  298,  310,  315,  317,  431, 
434- 

Bertolini,  A.,  377. 

Bertozzi,  G.  C.,  55,  67. 

Betts,  L.,  440. 

Beverini,  G.  B.,  “ II  dipartimento  . . . 
Algeria,”  222;  “ Lo  Stato  di  Espirito 
Santo,”  302;  “ Nella  zona  . . . Rio 
Grande,”  309. 

Bevione,  G.,  L’  Asia  Minore,  211; 
L’  Argentina,  251,  266,  271,  272,  277; 
Come  . . . a Tripoli,  499. 

Bianchi,  G.,  68. 

Bianchini,  L.,  53,  54,  65,  72. 

Biasi,  M.  de,  385. 

Bidou,  140,  148. 

Bigiavi,  E.,  213. 

Bignotti,  A.,  206. 

Bilbao,  M.,  273. 

Blackwood’ s Magazine,  254,  270. 


Blanchard,  E.,  132,  133,  134,  141,  142, 
144. 

Blumenthal,  162. 

Blunt,  J.  J.,  59,  82. 

Boccard,  O.  de,  215,  425. 

Bodio,  L.,  Di  alcuni  indici,  12;  In 
“ Rendiconti  sommari,”  389;  “ Dell’ 
emigrazione  italiana,”  475,  509;  Ad- 
dress before  Second  Geographic  Con- 
gress, 476;  Address  before  Emigration 
Council,  519. 

Bollati,  B.,  207. 

Bonacci,  G.,  219. 

Bonardelli,  E.,  298,  317,  431. 

Bonelli,  E.,  22,  208. 

Bonfanti,  N.  R.,  194.. 

Bonneff,  L.  and  M.,  La  vie  tragique,  140; 
La  classe  ouvriere,  142. 

Bonomelli,  G.,  476. 

Borel,  P.,  212. 

Bomhausen,  O.,  155. 

Brace,  C.  L.,  324. 

Branzoli-Zappi,  E.,  511. 

Brasile  e gli  italiani,  II,  290,  298,  315, 
3i7,  318. 

Breen,  G.,  205. 

Brenna,  P.,  “ L’  emigrazione  . . . Cuyo,” 
263,  273;  L’  emigrazione  italiana,  399, 
432,  S°3- 

Brunialti,  A.,  “ L’  esodo  degli  italiani,” 
475;  Le  colonie,  476. 

Bryce,  J.,  240,  269,  271,  273,  274,  288, 
291)  309-  3i5- 

Bruccoleri,  G.,  52,  76,  86. 

Buenos  Aires,  Anuario  Estadistico,  16, 
263;  Censo  municipal  (1887),  226, 
264;  Comision  de  Inmigracion,  233, 
236,  238;  General  Census  (1909),  262, 
263;  Yearbooks  — see  Anuario  Esta- 
distico. 

Burdese,  P.  A.,  132,  137. 

Burnichon,  J.,  316. 

Butler,  E.  B.,  344,  385. 

Buzzatti,  G.  C.,  “ La  doppia  cittadi- 
nanza,”  489;  “ L’ Italia,  1’ America 

Latina,”  489. 

Cabot,  R.  C.  and  Ritchie,  E.  K.,  388. 

Cabrini,  A.,  “ Nelle  fomaci  di  Baviera,” 
154,  166;  Note  in  Rivista  Coloniale, 
186;  Report  to  Trade  Union  Congress, 
480;  Manualetto  per  l’  emigrante,  487. 

Cafiero,  G.  B.,  341. 

Cagli,  E.  C.,  207. 

Caico,  L.,  82. 

Caillard,  C.  F.,  132,  133,  134,  141,  142, 
144. 

Calimani,  F.,  “ I profughi  di  guerra, 
33,  341  “ Condizione  . . . Granges,” 
177,  186,  187. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  INDEX  539 


Camera  Italiana  di  Commercio  (Buenos 
Aires),  Gli  italiani  (1898),  254,  257- 
26T,  263,  271-273,  296;  fi9o6),  260. 

Camicia,  M.,  “ Gli  italiani . . . Herault,” 
133;  Report,  1893,  195. 

Campolieti,  R.,  231,  266. 

Canada,  Royal  Commission  . . . Italian 
Labourers  . . . Employment  Agencies, 
339,  392;  Report  on  Foreign-Born 
Population,  400. 

Cance,  A.  E.,  363. 

Candido,  G.,  462. 

Canella,  F.,  295. 

Canisy,  A.  C.  de,  139. 

Capitani,  P.,  398. 

Capra,  G.,  “ La  colonizzazione  . . . 
Siria,”  21 1;  “ Gli  operai  . . . Amano,” 
211;  “ Adali,”  212;  “Gli  italiani  in 
Australia,”  443;  “ La  nostra  guerra,” 
500. 

Caputo,  L.  A.,  “I  disastri,”  63;  “ Di 
alcune  quistioni,”  69,  87. 

Carano-Donvito,  G.,  93. 

Carletti,  T.,  Report  on  Russia,  210;  “La 
Tunisia,”  217,  218,  219. 

Carloni,  F.  F.,  416. 

Carneluti,  A.,  176,  183,  184,  186. 

Carnevale,  E.,  89. 

Carpi,  L.,  6,  23,  35,  37,  39,  182,  206,  219, 
222,  231,  324,  325,  337,  341,  37s,  391, 
392,  406,  418,  429,  467,  474,  491. 

Carrasco,  G.,  233,  235,  247,  264. 

Carroccio,  II,  375,  399. 

Carson,  H.  A.,  185. 

Cartwright,  O.  G.,  404. 

Carvalho,  A.  de,  281. 

Caselli,  E.,  54. 

Castellini,  G.,  Tunisi  e Tripoli,  219,  497; 
Nelle  trincee,  499;  Trento  e Trieste,  500. 

Castiglia,  T.,  303. 

Castigliano,  A.,  350,  351,  380,  385. 

Catalani,  F.,  203. 

Cattedra  Ambulante  . . . Sondrio,  453. 

Cavaglieri,  G.,  113,  116,  120,  122,  456. 

Celli,  A.,  61. 

Centurione,  E.,  i3r,  140. 

Ceppi,  G.,  239,  249,  259,  260,  421,  429. 

Ceppi,  J.,  248,  254,  262,  266. 

Cerboni,  C.,  262. 

Ces.are,  R.  de,  70. 

Cesari,  E.,  467. 

Chiap,  G.,  19s,  198. 

Chicago,  385. 

Chicco,  E.,  214. 

Chiesi,  G.,  364. 

Cianfarra,  C.,  392,  394. 

Ciapelli,  E.,  “ Lo  stato  di  Rio  Grande  ” 
(two  articles),  309. 

Ciolfi,  E.,  54,  65. 

Ciolli,  D.,  385. 


Clark,  S.  H.  and  Wyatt,  E.,  344,  402. 
Clark,  V.  S.,  360,  394. 

Clerget,  P.,  177. 

Clot,  A.,  398. 

Coen,  G.,  499. 

Colajanni,  N.,  Gli  avvenimenti,  101; 

“ La  criminalita,”  406. 

Coletti,  F.,  “ La  rendita  e il  valore,”  88; 
Dell’  emigrazione  italiana,  416,  44T, 
447,  461;  “II  costo  di  produzione,” 
473;  “ Ancora  del  costo,”  473. 

Coletti,  S.,  “Lo  stato  di  S.  Paolo”  {Boll. 

Emig.),  289,  298;  {Emig.  e Col.),  438. 
Collegio  di  Scienze  Politiche  e Coloniali, 
497- 

Colletta,  P.,  65,  _7r. 

Collobiano,  A.  di,  206. 

Colombetti,  L.  243. 

Colucci,  E.,  133. 

Confederazione  del  Lavoro  {Italy),  33. 
Congressi  degli  Italiani  all’  Estero,  see 
Istituto  Coloniale  Italiano. 
Connecticut,  344. 

Conrad,  C.,  163. 

Consorzio  per  la  Tutela  dell’  Emigrazione 
Temporanea  nell’  Europa  Continen- 
tale,  13. 

Conte,  G.,  330,  392,  394,  407. 

Conti  culturali,  I,  88. 

Conti,  E.,  120. 

Contratti  agrarii,  I,  74,  76,  113. 

Coppi,  A.,  54,  65. 

Corbino,  E.,  105,  341,  458. 

Corinaldi,  L.,  208.  211. 

Corradini,  E.,  II  volere  d’  Italia,  219,  274, 
317,  428,  495,  505;  La  patria  lontana, 
494;  “ Italy  from  Adowa,”  494,  498; 
La  vita  nazionale,  495 ; L'ora  di  Tripoli, 
495,  498;  La  conquista  di  Tripoli,  499; 
Sopra  le  vie,  500. 

Correnti,  C.,  5,  134. 

Correspondenzblatt,  163,  484. 

Corriere  Italo- Americano,  399. 

Cosattini,  G.,  r3,  118,  119,  123,  124,  211, 
445,  448,  451,  452,  456. 

Costa,  G.,  159. 

Cottafavi,  V.,  499. 

Cova,  E.,  155. 

Craig,  F.  A.,  385. 

Crawford,  R.,  386,  395. 

Cromer,  Earl  of,  213. 

Cusano,  A.,  298,  303,  305,  309. 

Dali’  Aste  Brandolini,  A.,  335,  375. 
Dalla  Vecchia,  G.,  205. 

Daneo,  F.,  “1  pescatori  . . . Alaska,” 
341;  “ Condizioni  . . . Amador  city,” 
350;  “ L’  emigrazione  italiana  in  Cal- 
ifornia,” 350;  “ Gli  infortuni  ...  in 
California,”  390. 


540 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  INDEX 


Danieli  Camozzi,  M.  L.,  “ L’  emigrazione 
. . . Svizzera,”  179,  181,  185;  Review 
of  report  by,  185,  186;  Summary  of 
article  by,  186. 

Daniels,  J.,  336. 

Dauzat,  A.,  498. 

Davin,  A.,  214,  468. 

Davis,  M.  H.,  388. 

De  Forest,  R.  W.  and  Veiller,  L.,  385. 
Delgado  de  Carvalho,  C.  M.,  288,  301, 
3°9- 

Dejob,  C.,  150. 

Demontes,  V.,  222. 

Denis,  P.,  “ Italiens  de  Tunisie,”  217; 

Le  Bresil,  290,  301,  303,  309,  313. 
Domville-Fife,  C.  W.,  309. 

Deperais,  L.,  213. 

De  Souza  Monteiro,  R.,  206. 

De  Ville,  J.,  398. 

Dickmann,  E.,  273. 

Dondero,  C.,  323. 

Dominguez,  S.,  254,  267,  268. 
Dominioni,  C.  C.,  12,  201. 

Donadio,  P.,  158,  167,  168. 

Droz,  N.,  180. 

Dudan,  A.,  190. 

Durando,  C.,  141. 

Duval,  J.,  5. 

Du  Var,  R.,  84. 

Eastman,  P.  R.,  388. 

E.  H.  M.,  163. 

Einaudi,  L.,  Cor  so  di  scienza  della 
finanza,  93 ; Un  principe  mercante,  238, 
254,  263. 

Eles,  E.,  217. 

Emigrazione  agricola  al  Brasile,  297,  303, 
3°5>  3°9,  3!°- 
Epstein,  M.  D.,  210. 

Elat  de  Sao  Paulo , L' , 298. 

Fara  Fomi,  G.,  “ Gl’  interessi . . . Nuova 
Orleans,”  341,  364;  Report  in  Boll. 
Emig.,  394. 

Federer,  G.,  155. 

Feo,  L.  de,  521. 

Ferliga,  V.,  137,  140,  146,  157. 

Ferraris,  C.  F.,  467. 

Ferreira  Ramos,  F.,  287. 

Ferrero,  F.,  363. 

Ferrero,  G.,  421. 

Ferretti,  G.,  211. 

Ferri,  E.,  432,  489. 

Festa,  C.,  475. 

Fichet,  C.,  21 1. 

Fidel,  C.,  217,  218. 

Finzi,  V.,  208. 

Fischer,  T.,  56,  59. 

Fisk,  H.  A.,  341. 

Flor,  S.,  192,  195. 


Florenzano,  G.,  6, 145, 324,  325, 391, 423, 
474- 

Flores,  L.  L.,  309. 

Flori,  E.,  494. 

Foerster,  R.  F.,  275,  276,  444. 

Fontaine,  212. 

Fontana-Russo,  L.,  467. 

Foresta,  A.  de,  155. 

Fortunati,  N.,  303,  313. 

Fortunato,  G.,  Address  in  Senate,  459; 

II  mezzogiorno,  476. 

Fossataro,  E.,  480. 

Fraccacreta,  A.,  516. 

France,  Recensement  (1911),  27,  129  and 
ch.  viii,  passim;  Denombrement  des 
etrangers , 129;  Recensement  (1906), 
130,  140;  La  petite  propriety,  132,  134. 
Frances,  M.,  308. 

Franceschini,  A.,  233,  236,  290. 
Franchetti,  L.,  65,  74,  99. 

Frankel,  L.  K.  and  Dublin,  L.  I.,  387. 
Franzoia,  F.,  305,  317. 

Franzoni,  A.,  “ Colonizzazione  . . . 
Libia,”  214;  Gli  interessi  italiani  in 
New  York , 392;  chapter  in  Gli  italiani 
nell’  Argentina,  296;  “ Italia  ed  Argen- 
tina,” 488. 

Frescura,  B.,  243,  245. 

Fratta,  P.  di,  476. 

Gallavresi,  G.,  33. 

Gallenga,  A.,  Italy  Revisited,  100;  Coun- 
try Life,  hi,  113,  115. 

Garbaglia,  L.,  115. 

Gardini,  C.,  323,  409. 

Gavotti,  F.,  175,  177,  181,  182,  183. 
Gayda,  V.,  190,  195. 

Gemma,  S.,  143,  163. 

Gerardin,  E.,  259,  269. 

German}^,  Vierteljahrshefte  zur  Statistik, 
27,  153;  Reichsarbeitsblatt,  152,  155; 
Gewerbliche  Betriebsstatistik,  152,  158; 
Statistisches  Jahrbuch,  152,  153,  161; 
Die  Regelung  des  A rbeitsverhdl t n isses , 

165. 

Ghersi,  A.,  210. 

Ghinassi,  P.,  295,  431. 

Ghio,  P.,  399. 

Giacchi,  G.,  “ La  colonia  . . . Bosnia,” 
197,200;  “ II  lavoro,”  197;  note,  197; 
“ La  Rumelia,”  209. 

Giacosa,  G.,  “ Gli  italiani  a New  York,” 
376;  “ Chicago,”  376;  Impressioni  d’ 
America,  376. 

Gide,  C.  and  Lambert,  M.,  142. 

Giglioli,  I.,  52,  58. 

Gillin  de  Robaulx,  A.,  206. 

Gini,  C.,  L’  ammontare  . . . ricchezza,  106; 

I fattori  demografici,  470. 

Ginocchio,  P.,  359. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  INDEX 


S4i 


Gioia,  L.,  256. 

Gitta,  P.,  141. 

Godio,  G.,  234,  273. 

Goffreddo,  M.,  289,  291. 

Goldstein,  J.,  163,  164. 

Gomez  Langenheim,  A.,  234. 

Gonnard,  R.,  24. 

Goyzueta  di  Toverena,  A.,  208. 

Grande,  P.,  206. 

Great  Britain,  Royal  Commission  on 
Labor,  141,  193;  Census  (1911),  205. 

Grippa,  G.,  261. 

Grizi,  J.,  80,  1 13. 

Grossi,  V.,  Storia  . . . Brasile,  281,  289, 
290,  295;  “L’  insegnamento  colo- 
niale,”  492. 

Gubernatis,  A.  de,  240,  251,  260. 

Gubernatis,  E.  de,  208. 

Guerra,  P.,  313. 

Guilaine,  L.,  231,  233,  236,  241. 

Guilfoy,  W.  H.,  388. 

Guzzini,  297,  310. 

Hammerton,  J.  A.,  239,  251. 

Hansen,  160,  164. 

Heath,  E.  B.,  205. 

Heye,  O.,  158. 

Hiller,  G.,  259,  260. 

H.  F.,  140,  141,  143. 

Hudig,  G.,  206. 

Huret,  J.,  239,  252,  266. 

Hungary,  199. 

Huntington,  E.,  53. 

Immigration  Journal,  410. 

Inchiesta  Agraria,  47,  51,  56,  58,  59,  62, 
65-70,  72,  73,  82,  84,  86,  93,  95,  97, 
108-110,  112-114,  116-120,  124,  125, 
451,  452,  457- 

Inchiesta  Parlamentare,  51,  56-58,  60,  63, 
68,  69,  72-74,  77,  78,  82-89,  93-97, 
100-105,  219,  276,  417,  418,  437,  439, 
447-449,  451-455,  457,  458,  460,  467, 
487,  489- 

Iona,  G.,  213. 

Ischchanian,  B.,  210. 

Istituto  Coloniale  Italiana,  489,  493,  503. 

Italia  Coloniale,  V , 477. 

Italian  Business  Directory,  376. 

Italiani  negli  Stati  Uniti,  Gli,  340,  364, 
376. 

Italica  Gens,  398. 

Italy,  Censimento  (1861),  5;  Statistica 
della  emigrazione,  7,  10,  12,  13,  19,  27, 
30,  38,  530;  Ufficio  del  Lavoro,  Bollet- 
tino  and  other  publications,  15,  33,  38, 
115,  141,  143,  185,  483,  533;  Annuario 
Stalistico,  19,  30,  42,  60,  100,  467; 
Commissariato  Generale  dell’  Emigra- 
zione, reports,  27,  34,  38, 146, 160, 165, 


169,  176,  177,  182,  184-186,  195,  197, 
198,  206,  209,  260,  359,  427,  446,  451, 
452,  529,  531;  Censimento  11871),  37; 
Movimento  della  popolazione,  42;  Cen- 
simento 11882),  49;  Censimento  I1901), 
49,  62,  69,  71,  83,  84;  Censimento 
I1911),  49,  515;  Risultati dell’  Inchiesta 
sulle  Condizioni  Igieniche,  51,  57,  60; 
II  chinino,  61;  L’  opera  del  Ministero 
. . . terremoto,  63;  Annali  di  Statistica, 
213;  L’  istruzione  primaria,  515;  see 
also  I conti  culturali,  I contratti  agrarii, 
Inchiesta  Agraria,  Inchiesta  Parla- 
mentare, Di  taluni  effetti,  Variazioni 
del  fitto. 

Italy’s  Foreign  and  Colonial  Policy  [Tit- 
toni],  477,  478,  481,  482. 

Jacini,  S.,  120. 

Jacini,  S.,  152,  163,  164,  170. 

Jannone,  G.,  233,  259,  262. 

Jarach,  L.,  113,  194,  201,  455. 

Jones.  T.  J.,  385. 

Kaerger,  K.,  239,  241. 

Koren,  J.,  391. 

Krause,  F.  G.,  “ L’  immigrazione  . . . 
Lipsia,”  159,  169;  “ L’  immigrazione 
italiana  . . . Turingia,”  160;  Report  in 
Emig.  e Col.,  160. 

Lacava,  P.,  “ La  Basilicata,”  54,  59; 
“ Sulle  condizioni,”  58. 

La  Duca,  J.,  399. 

Lair,  M.,  132-134,  141-143. 

Laliere,  A.,  286,  287,  290. 

Lambertenghi,  B.,  “Gli  italiani  . . . 
Francoforte,”  r54,  165;  “ Gli  italiani 
in  Triberg,”  155;  Report  on  Zurich 
district,  178;  “ L’  immigrazione  . . . 
Zurigo,”  182;  “La  nostra  immigra- 
zione . . . Trieste,”  195,  200. 

Langhard,  J.,  181. 

La  Piana,  G.,  387. 

Lassance  Cunby,  E.  A.,  309. 

Laveleye,  E.  de,  420. 

Le  Bon,  G.,  431. 

Lebrecht,  V.,  “Inchiesta,”  198,  201; 
“ I minorenni  . . . Croazia  ” 198,  200, 
201;  “ Fiume,”  198,  200. 

Ledent,  A.,  31 1. 

Lehmert,  R.,  report  in  Emig.  e Col.,  160; 
report  on  Kiel,  160,  163,  164. 

Lelli,  G.,  136,  145. 

Lenormand,  J.,  220. 

Letters  from  railway  officials  (U.  S.),  358, 
359,  361,  362,  394. 

Levasseur,  E.,  131,  143,  145. 

Levy,  G.,  148. 

Libelli,  M.  M.,  94. 


542 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  INDEX 


Literary  Digest,  398. 

Llande,  P.,  264. 

Lodge,  H.  C.,  408. 

Lombroso-Ferrero,  G.,  240,  298,  316,  415. 
Lomonoco,  A.,  22. 

Lonfat,  G.,  233,  236,  237. 

Longare,  L.  B.,  206. 

Lord,  E.,  363. 

Lorenzoni,  G.,  69,  72,  76,  95,  97, 433, 454. 
Lori,  C.,  56,  88. 

Loth,  G.,  215,  217,  220. 

Lucchesi-Palli,  F.,  176,  181,  185. 

Lucchi,  G.  de,  192,  194,  200,  201. 

Lupati,  C.,  254,  273. 

Luzzatti,  L.,  Address  in  Emigration 
Council,  519;  “ Nota  sul  trattato,” 

S2i. 

McClure,  A.,  398. 

McCulloch,  0.  C.,  354. 

Macdonald,  G.  C.,  305. 

MacLean,  A.  M.,  344. 

Machiavelli,  G.  B.,  220,  222. 

Madia,  E.,  438. 

Magalhaes,  B.  de,  316. 

Magenta,  C.,  131,  140,  141. 
Maggiore-Perni,  F.,  62. 

Malaspina,  249. 

Malmusi,  G.,  195. 

Malvezzi,  G.,  and  Zanotti-Bianco,  U., 
93;  96. 

Manass,ero  di  Castigliole,  V.,  335. 
Mancini,  E.,  176,  185. 

Manfredi,  L.,  61. 

Mangano,  A.,  398,  434,  460. 

Mangin,  A.,  212. 

Mantegazza,  V.,  L’  allra  sponda,  197, 
198,  207;  Agli  Siati  Uniti,  364;  Tri- 
poli, 499- 

Marazzi,  A.,  “ II  canton  Ticino,”  14, 174, 
181,  185;  “ L’  immigrazione  italiana,” 
176;  report  on  Bellinzona  district,  173. 
Marazzi,  G.,  335. 

Marchesini,  G.  B.,  281,  316. 

Marchetti,  L.,  “ L’ emigration,”  532; 
“ Die  inneren  jahreszeithchen  Wande- 
rungen,”  533. 

Marcone,  N.,  303,  316. 

Marshall,  A.,  80. 

Martin  de  Moussy,  V.,  233,  274. 
Martinengo  Cesaresco,  E.,  112,  113,  119. 
Martini,  F.,  239. 

Martirano,  F.,  61. 

Massachusetts,  Report  ...  the  Unem- 
ployed, 354,  401,  402;  Report  . . . Im- 
migration, 385,  406. 

Mathews,  L.,  363. 

Mayor  des  Planches,  E.,  “ La  Serbia,” 
208;  Attraverso  gli  Stati  Uniti,  356, 
364,  394,  408. 


Mayo-Smith,  R.,  24. 

Mazzini,  F.,  291,  315. 

Mazzotti,  L.,  298. 

Mazzucconi,  298. 

Meade,  E.  F.,  363. 

Medana,  A.,  214. 

Mendoza,  240,  273. 

Menezes  e Souza,  J.  C.,  282. 

Mercalli,  G.,  63. 

Merlino,  S.,  391. 

Merrheim,  A.,  “ L’  organisation  patro- 
nale,”  140,  142;  “ Le  mouvement 

ouvrier,”  141. 

Metelli,  338,  341,  376,  393. 

Michele,  R.,  335,  359,  375. 

Micheli,  P.,  277. 

Michelis,  G.  de,  “ L’  emigrazione  . . . 
Svizzera,”  173, 175, 181,  182, 184-187; 
“ Gli  operai  al  Sempione,”  175,  185; 
“ Regio  Ufficio,”  176,  177,  182,  185, 
186;  “ Le  istituzioni  italiani,”  177; 
“ Salari  in  uso,”  183;  “Ufficio  . . . 
Relazione,”  184,  424;  “ II  mercato  del 
lavoro,”  184;  “ Le  associazioni  itali- 
ane,”  187;  “ La  mutualita,”  187 
Milazzo,  S.,  196,  197. 

Millelire,  G.,  207. 

Minocchi,  S.,  210. 

Modrich,  G.,  274. 

Molina  Nadal,  E.,  239,  240,  244,  266. 
Molinari,  160. 

Molinas,  F.  T.,  La  colonization  argen- 
tina,  233,  246;  Santa  Fe  agricola,  246. 
Mollo,  A.,  251. 

Monaco,  A.,  292,  298. 

Mondini,  P.,  “La  Baviera,”  155;  “ L’- 
immigrazione  . . . Baviera,”  155,  166. 
Moneta,  P.,  258,  259. 

Montaldi,  V.  A.,  205. 

Monzani,  R.,  213. 

Moore,  A.,  363. 

Mordini,  L.,  197. 

Mori,  A.,  “ L’  emigrazione  dalla  Tos- 
cana,” 37,  449;  Gli  italiani  a Costan- 
tinopoli,  21 1. 

Moroni,  G.,  “ L’  emigrazione  . . . Flo- 
rida,” 341,  350,  356;  “ La  Louisiana,” 
344,  364;  “ Lo  stato  dell’  Alabama,” 
344,  350,  408;  “II  Texas,”  350; 
“ Le  regioni  . . . Canada,”  350,  364; 
“ II  British  Columbia,”  350;  “ L’  emi- 
grazione itahana,”  350;  “ Le  con- 

dizioni  attuali  . . . Canada,”  359,  360; 
“ Gli  italiani  in  Tangipahoa,”  364; 
“ L’  emigrazione  . . . Nuova  Orleans,” 
364 ; “ II  Texas  e 1’  emigrazione 

italiana,”  364;  “ Censimento  delle 

famiglie,”  364;  “ Condizioni  . . . 

Hearne,”  364. 

Morpurgo,  E.,  428. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  INDEX  543 


Mortara,  G.,  “ Numeri  indici,”  106; 
“ Le  nuove  carte,”  163;  “ Tavola  di 
mortalita,”  469;  “ Basilicata  e Cala- 
bria,” 470;  “ Emigrazione  e sanita 
pubblica,”  481. 

Mosca,  G.,  499. 

Mosso,  A.,  52,  S3,  59,  120,  124. 

Mulhall,  M.  G.  and  E.  T.,  254. 

Muxri,  R.,  “ Impressioni  d’  America,” 
270,  272,  274,  277;  “ Gl’  italiani  nell’ 
America  Latina,”  488. 

Napoli,  M.  and  Belli,  N.,  279,  289,  297, 
313-315,  3i7,  3!8. 

Napp,  R.,  233,  236. 

Naselli,  G.,  355. 

Nathan,  E.,  84. 

Nazari,  V.,  468. 

Necco,  A.,  470. 

Neggia,  A.,  251. 

New  Jersey,  344. 

New  York,  Report  . . . on  Immigration, 
336,  353,  392;  Factory  Investigating 
Commission,  344,  379,  389. 

New  York  Times,  375. 

Nicolini,  C.,  letter,  355;  “ Gli  italiani 
_•  • • Texas,”  359. 

Nicotra,  G.,  512. 

Nisi,  “ Lettera  dal  Cairo,”  34;  “ II  lato 
; ._  . Egitto,”  213. 

Nitti,  F.  S.,  Principi  di  scienza  delle 
finanze,  93;  La  ricchezza  del l’  Italia, 
106;  in  Chamber  of  Deputies,  476, 
488;  “ La  nuova  fase,”  476. 

Nobile,  L.  de,  56,  96,  448,  450,  453. 

Norton,  G.  P.,  385. 

Notari,  G.,  “La  provincia  di  Cordoba,” 
235,  243,  245,  246,  251,  257,  260; 
“ Gli  italiani . . . Santa  Fe,”  249,  256; 
“ La  provincia  di  Cordoba,”  249,  256; 
“ Le  provincie  . . . Jujuy,”  256;  “ Le 
provincie  di  Tucuman,”  260. 

Oakenfull,  J.  C.,  287. 

Odencrantz,  L.  C.,  344, 378, 381, 390, 440 

Olivetti,  A.  O.,  59. 

Opera  di  Assistenza  agli  Operai  ...  in 
Europa,  Relazione,  33;  Primo  con- 
gresso  italiano,  484. 

Oppenheim,  T.  di,  “I  minorenni  ital- 
iani,” 158;  “ L’  immigrazione  . . . 
Westfalia,”  158,  169;  “ La  Renania,” 
158. 

Ottolenghi,  C.,  338,  341,  358,  374. 

Palma-Castiglione,  G.  E.  di,  “ Gli 
itahani  a St.  Moritz,”  186;  “ L’  ori- 
ente  d’  Europa,”  208,  209;  “ Vari 

centri  italiani,”  345,  380,  385,  393, 
398,  404,  408,  431;  “Dove  possono 


andare,”  364;  “ Ufficio  del  lavoro,” 
37i- 

Palomba,  D.,  222. 

Palombella,  C.,  451. 

Pantaleoni,  M.,  467. 

Paoli,  R.,  499. 

Paolucci  de’  Calboli,  R.,  Larmes  et 
sourires,  135-137,  144,  145;  cited  by 
Cabrini,  186,  187;  I girovaghi  italiani, 
205. 

Pappalepore,  F.,  209. 

Parato,  239. 

Pareto,  V.,  Conrs,  472;  “ II  costo  di 
produzione,”  473. 

Parish,  W.,  227. 

Parisi,  G.,  226,  227,  237,  255,  263. 

Parker,  G.  F.,  358. 

Passalacqua,  73. 

Pasteris,  E.,  “ Una  missione  sul  Baltico, 
159;  “Una  missione  sul  Reno,”  177, 
179,  187. 

Patrizi,  E.,  341,  376. 

Paulucci  de’  Calboli,  see  Paolucci,  etc. 

Pecorini,  A.,  “ The  Italian  . . . Agricul- 
tural Laborer,”  363;  “ The  Italians  in 
the  United  States,”  387. 

Pedrazzi,  O.,  217. 

Pepin,  E.,  205. 

Pereira  da  Silva,  J.  M.,  282. 

Perona,  V.,  56. 

Perrod,  E.,  “ Immigrazione  e colonia 
. . . Lione,”  137,  146;  “ I minorenni 
italiani,”  137, 146;  report  on  Russia, 
210;  La  provincia  di  San  Paolo,  290, 
316. 

Pertile,  A.,  74. 

Pertile,  G.,  “ Gli  italiani  in  Germania,” 
i5ij  *52,  i55,  157.  158,  !6o,  161,  163- 
168,  170,  459;  “ Le  condizioni  . . . 
Colonia,”  158,  168,  169;  “ Rapporto 
. . . Colonia,”  158,  168,  169;  “ Lo 
sciopero,”  163. 

Petrocchi,  L.,  “ Le  colonie  . . . Espirito 
Santo,”  302;  “ Le  colonie  . . . Santa 
Catharina,”  305,  317;  “Gli  italiani 
. . . Bento  Gonralves,”  308,  309;  early 
reports,  309. 

Peyret,  A.,  232,  233,  236-238,  265. 

Pezzani,  G.,  155,  165,  166,  169. 

Pfeiffer,  H.,  154,  155. 

Piazza,  G.,  La  nostra  terra  promessa,  497; 
Come  conquistammo  Tripoli,  499. 

Pic,  P.,  143. 

Piccarolo,  A.,  298. 

Picot,  A.,  180,  182. 

Pierantoni,  I fatti  di  Nuova  Orleans,  408; 
“ I linciaggi,”  408. 

Pieyre,  A.,  226. 

Pio  di  Savoia,  G.,  communication,  136: 
“ Lo  Stato  di  San  Paolo,”  289,  291, 


544 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  INDEX 


293,  297,  298,  301;  report  to  Emigra- 
tion Council,  298;  “ Lo  stato  di  Santa 
Catharina,”  305. 

Piot,  S.,  54. 

Piquet,  V.,  219,  220. 

Pisani,  P.,  364. 

Podesta,  G.,  53,  59. 

Podrecca,  G.,  498. 

Poma,  G.,  “ Gli  italiani  . . . Cardiff,” 
205;  “ Gli  italiani  del  Levante,”  21 1. 

Pope,  J.  E.,  344. 

Prat,  F.,  353,  375; 

Prato,  G.,  “ L’  emigrazione  temporanea,” 
13;  “ II  movimento  d’  associazione,” 
195;  “ Gli  italiani  in  Inghilterra,”  205. 

Preuss,  160. 

Preyer,  W.  D.,  76. 

Preziosi,  G.,  GV  italiani  negli  Stall  Uniti, 
331,  392;  II  problema  dell’  Italia,  477, 
521;  “La  proibizione  dello  sbarco,” 

5J9-  . . . 

Provana  del  Sabbione,  L.,  “ Viaggi  di 
ispezione,”  291;  “ Condizioni  . . . 

Chicago,”  393. 

Quairoli,  C.,  364. 

Racca,  V.,  56. 

Ramos  Mejia,  J.  M.,  266. 

Ravajoli,  A.,  “ La  colonia  . . . Distretto 
di  Columbia,”  355,  359;  “La  coloniz- 
zazione  agricola,”  363,  371. 

Raynal,  P.,  221. 

Reale  Societa  Geografica  Italiana,  248, 
254,  256,  294,  314. 

Reid,  S.,  406. 

“ Relazione  sui  servizi,”  see  Italy,  com- 
missariato  generale. 

Reyes,  R.,  309,  319. 

Reynaud,  G.,  22,  140,  147,  148. 

Rhode  Island,  355. 

Ricciardi,  G.,  “La  Tunisia,”  219;  “ Le 
condizioni  . . . California,”  353,  404. 

Ricoux,  R.,  220. 

Righetti,  F.,  205. 

Riis,  J.,  How  the  Other  Half  Lives,  326, 
383;  The  Children  of  the  Poor,  383, 
434;  Out  of  Mulberry  Street,  383. 

Rikio,  2ir. 

Rio,  M.  E.,  233,  235. 

Rio,  M.  E.  and  Achival,  L.,  233,  235, 
239,  263,  266. 

Riva,  G.  P.,  330,  358. 

Rivista  Coloniale,  147,  164,  500,  519. 

Rivista  di  Emigrazione,  487. 

Rizzetto,  R.,  “ L’immigrazione  . . . 
Espirito  Santo,”  291,  302;  “ Coloniz- 
zazione  . . . Espirito  Santo,”  291,  302. 

Roberts,  P.,  350. 

Rocca,  L.  S.,  289. 


Rocca,  S.  L.,  208. 

Roche,  J.,  381,  409. 

Rocquigny,  de,  102. 

Rochling,  P.,  “La  Renania,”  157;  “La 
Lorena,”  157,  158;  “ La  Renania,  la 
Vestfalia,”  158. 

Romano,  P.,  494. 

Rosati,  F.,  462. 

Rosati,  T.,  438. 

Ross,  E.  A.,  390. 

Rossati,  G.,  contribution  to  Gli  italiani, 
etc.,  340,  344;  “ La  colonizzazione 
. . . Alabama,”  363. 

Rossi,  A.,  “ Note  . . . Rosario,”  237,  248 
251,  260,  275;  “ Condizioni  . . . S. 
Paolo,”  295;  Un  italiano  in  America, 
326,  331;  “ Per  la  tutela  degli  itali- 
ani,” 373;  “Vantaggi  e danni,”  417, 
418,  422,  436,  458,  467,  480,  514. 

Rossi,  E.,  335,  344,  359. 

Rossi,  E.  P.,  93,  96,  98,  102,  103. 

Rossi,  G.,  1 60. 

Rossi,  L.,  “ Relazione  sui  servizi,”  27; 
“L’  immigrazione  . . . Marsiglia,”  131. 

Rossi,  M.  M.  de’,  344,  381,  385. 

Rostand,  E.,  136,  141. 

Rovelli,  F.,  hi,  112,  114,  116,  120. 

Rudini,  A.  di,  52,  78. 

Russo,  G.,  25,  30. 

Sabetta,  G.,  303. 

Sabetta,  U.,  217,  218. 

Sacchi,  F.,  205. 

Sachs,  I.,  6,  55. 

“ Saggio  di  una  statistica,”  27,  229,  289. 

Saint-Martin,  G.,  335,  338,  359,  364. 

Salaverria,  J.  M.,  267,  268,  277. 

Salazar,  L.,  205. 

Saldias,  A.,  273,  487. 

Salemi-Pace,  B.,  303. 

Salvemini,  G.,  96. 

Salvioli,  G.,  Le  nostre  origini,  53,  59; 
Trattato  di  storia,  54,  70;  “ II  villan- 
aggio,”  70,  72,  74;  “ Gabellotti  e con- 
tadini,”  74,  80. 

Samama,  N.,  489. 

Samminiatelli,  D.,  515. 

Sandicchi,  P.,  14,  154,  166. 

Sandro,  A,  di,  219. 

Santa  F6,  227,  228,  234,  242. 

Sao  Paulo,  Relatorio  da  agricultura,  288, 
297;  Annuario  Estatisticc,  288,  301, 
319;  Secretaria  da  Justifa,  318,  319. 

Sardi,  C.,  205. 

Sarti,  B.,  237. 

Sartorio,  E.  C.,  398,  440. 

Sartorius,  A.,  Frh.  v.  Waltershausen,  71, 
73- 

Saurin,  J.,  219. 

Sbarboro,  A.,  369. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  INDEX 


545 


Scaniglia,  A.,  209. 

Scardin,  F.,  237,  238,  240,  244,  247,  248, 
258,  260,  263,  265,  271,  273. 
Schiaparelli,  177. 

Schilling,  T.,  “ L’immigrazione  italiana,” 
iS5,  165;  “La  Baviera,”  155. 

Schipa,  M.,  70. 

Schirmacher,  K.,  135,  136,  143,  144. 
Schmid,  C.  A.,  Das  gesetzliche  Armen- 
wesen,  181;  “ Das  Armenwesen,”  181, 
186,  187. 

Schmidt,  P.  H.,  180,  181. 

Schmit,  E.,  162. 

Seifarth,  E.  T.,  163. 

Sella,  E.,  175,  178,  181-183,  185-187, 
439- 

Sensini,  G.,  93. 

Sergi,  A.,  462. 

Serpieri,  A.,  no,  112,  113,  120,  122,  124, 
450- 

Serra,  335,  353,  363,  375. 

Serragli,  P.  F.,  80. 

Sheridan,  F.  J.,  350,  355,  358,  359,  385, 
386,  392. 

Shriver,  W.  P.,  398. 

Siciliani,  V.,  222. 

Sighele,  S.,  II  nazionalismo,  494;  Pagine 
nazionaliste,  494;  “ La  nouvelle  psy- 
chologic,” 499,  500. 

Silva,  G.,  303. 

Silva-Prado,  M.  E.  da,  285,  294. 
Silvestrelli,  G.,  209. 

Silvestrelli,  L.,  173,  175,  181,  183. 
Simkhovitch,  M.,  440. 

Simond,  L.,  61. 

Simonetti,  M.,  132. 

Sitta,  P.,  21 1. 

Smaniotto-Dei  Roveri,  G.,  456. 

Smith,  R.  B.,  109. 

Societa  Italiana  per  lo  Studio  della  Libia 
214,  499. 

Societa  di  Patronato  . . . Buenos  Aires, 
269. 

Societa  Umanitaria,  483. 

Sol6rzano  y Costa,  J.  N.,  298. 

Somma,  V.  di,  77. 

Sommi-Picenardi,  G.,  146. 

Sonnino,  S.,  65,  66,  80,  87. 

Souchon,  A.,  132,  133,  141. 

Southern  Literary  Messenger,  323. 
Soziale  Praxis,  21,  164,  165,  168,  169. 
Spadoni,  A.,  403. 

Spagnoli,  E.,  210. 

Spangberg,  V.,  422. 

Speare,  C.  F.,  374. 

Spectator,  21 1. 

Speranza,  G.  C.,  399. 

Spiotti,  E.,  273. 

Squitti,  N.,  210. 

Starace,  A.,  364,  519. 


Steiner,  E.  A.,  460. 

Stella,  A.,  “ The  Effects  of  Urban  Con- 
gestion,” 388;  “ The  Prevalence  of 
Tuberculosis,”  388;  La  lotta  contro  la 
tubercolosi,  388. 

Stephens,  H.,  313,  315. 

Stone,  A.  H.,  363,  368. 

Stramberg,  G.  v.,  248. 

Stringher,  B.,  447. 

Stuzke,  14. 

Switzerland,  Recensement  (1910),  27, 

172;  Recensement  (1900),  173;  Ergeb- 
nisse  . . . Betriebszahlung  (1905),  173, 
174,  177,  180. 

Syrup,  F.,  158. 

Tajani,  F.,  177. 

Taluni  effetti,  Di,  etc.,  55,  66-68. 

Taruffi,  D.,  56,  58,  62,  72,  74,  82,  454. 

Tattara,  V.  A.,  205. 

Tedeschi,  E.  C.,  500. 

Tedeschi,  U.,  298 

Tesi,  G.,  209. 

Thaon  di  Revel,  V.,  208. 

Thornton,  W.  T.,  96. 

Tiscar,  F.,  350. 

Tittoni,  T.,  “ Assistenza  degli  emi- 
granti,”  481;  Address  in  Senate,  519; 
see  also  Italy's  Foreign  and  Colonial 
Policy. 

Tomezzoli,  U.,  235,  237,  240,  243,  248, 
250,  260,  266,  270,  273. 

Tornielli  Brusati  di  Vergano,  G.,  La 
Francia  e V emigrazione,  24,  141,  144, 
148;  report  in  Emig.  e Col.  (1893),  205. 

Toscani,  O.,  213. 

Trentin,  P.,  468. 

Troeltsch,  W.  and  Hirschfeld,  P.,  163, 
164. 

Troisi,  E.,  233,  235,  237,  248,  274,  430. 

Tugini,  S.,  “ Gli  italiani  . . . Olanda,” 
206;  “ Gli  italiani  . . Egitto,”  213. 

Tumiati,  D.,  498. 

Tunisino,  215. 

Tuozzi,  A.,  297. 

Turner,  T.  A.,  256,  271. 

Ufficio  del  Lavoro  . . . Tirano,  459. 

Umilta,  C.,  “ I pescatori  chioggiotti,” 
196,  200;  “ 11  Parand,”  303,  313,  317, 
318. 

United  States,  Summary  of  Commerce 
and  Finance,  15;  Commissioner-Gen- 
eral of  Immigration,  reports,  15,  21, 
331,  332;  A Century  of  Population 
Growth,  328;  Thirteenth  Census,  328, 
336;  Ninth  Census,  334,  335,  336; 
Eleventh  Census,  335,  336;  Twelfth 
Census,  336;  The  Slums  of  Great 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  INDEX 


546 


Cities,  335,  376;  Woman  and  Child 
Wage-Earners,  344-347,  378,  381,  383- 
3851387,402;  Industrial  Commission, 
reports,  344,  350,  354,  355,  358,  376, 
377,  387,  394',  Immigration  Commis- 
sion, reports,  344,  350,  363,  374,  379- 
381,  392,  395,  399,  406,  407,  409,  424; 
Report  on  Strike  of  Textile  Workers, 
344,423;  Report  . . . on  Immigration 
and  Naturalization,  354;  The  Italians 
in  Chicago,  377,  386;  Strike  . . . in 
Lawrence,  404;  Miners’  Strike  . . . 
Westmoreland  County,  404;  Birth 
Statistics  . . . 1915,  410. 

Usiglio,  C.,  287. 

Vaccaro,  C.  A.,  209. 

Vaina,  E.,  208. 

Valenti,  G.,  “ II  latifondo,”  78;  II  sis- 
tema  tributario,  94. 

Valentini-Fersini,  G.,  521. 

Valeriani,  V.,  185. 

Valle,  R.  della,  198. 

Vallelonga,  G.  E.  di,  521. 

Vallentin,  W.,  305. 

Van  Dam,  E.,  206. 

Van  Kleeck,  M.,  344,  381,  403. 

Variazioni  del  fitto  del  terreni,  88,  113. 

Velutiis,  F.  de,  “ La  colonia  . . . Tuni- 
sia,” 219;  “ Lo  stato  di  Rio  Grande,” 
3°9- 

Venerosi  Pesciolini,  R.,  303,  305,  309, 
311,  3i3,  43°,.  485-  . 

Venticinque  anni  di  missione  . . . Boston, 
398- 

Verein  fur  die  bergbaulichen  Interessen, 
etc.,  158,  167. 

Vianello-Chiodo,  M.,  489. 

Vignes,  M.,  139-141,  147,  148. 

Villa,  A.,  206. 

Villanova,  F.  R.  di,  198. 

Villari,  L.,  “ Gli  italiani  in  Francia,” 
136,  137,  140;  “ Gli  italiani  . . . Caro- 
lina del  Sud,”  330;  “ L’  emigrazione 
. . . Filadelfia,”  335,  359,  392,  394; 
“ Gli  italiani  . . . New  Orleans,”  364; 
Gli  Stati  Uniti,  392,  393,  398,  519; 
“ Italy  a year  after  the  Libyan  War,” 
499. 


Villari,  P.,  “ L’  emigrazione  e !e  sue  con- 
seguenze,”  22,  99,  420,  454;  Le  lettere 
meridionali,  98,  509;  address  in  Senate 
459,  465;  “La  scuola,”  515; 

Vinci,  A.  “ L’  emigrazione  . . . Briey,” 
138-140,  148,  168;  “ Banche  e ban- 
chieri,”  392. 

Viola,  D.,  359. 

Visart,  G.  de,  198. 

Vischer,  A.,  182. 

Visconti,  A.,  468. 

Visconti,  E.,  117. 

Vita,  A.,  512. 

Vita  Italiana  all ’ Estero,  210. 

Viti  de  Marco,  A.  de,  56. 

Wald,  L.  D.,  391. 

Wallas,  G.,  507,  508. 

Walle,  P.,  L’  Argentine,  232,  233,  240, 
251.;  Au  Bresil,  290,  309. 

Warne,  F.  G.,  336,  350,  402. 

Weber,  G.,  206. 

Weissenbach,  P.,  177. 

Wermert,  G.,  53,  73,  82. 

Whelpley,  J.  D.,  521. 

White,  F.  M.,  “ The  Black  Hand  in 
Control,”  406;  “ How  . . . the  Black 
Hand,”  406. 

Wild,  A.,  181. 

Wilde,  J.  A.,  266. 

Wilkins,  W.  H.,  “ The  Italian  Aspect,” 
203,  205;  The  Alien  Invasion,  205. 

Willecke,  C.,  162. 

Willett,  M.  H.,  344,  347,  381. 

Women’s  Educational  and  Industrial 
Union  (Boston),  344. 

Woods,  A.,  406. 

Woolston,  H.  B.,  338. 

Zahm,  J.  A.,  240. 

Zambler,  A.,  60. 

Zanluca,  G.,  303. 

Zannoni,  G.,  193,  200. 

Zeballos,  E.  S.,  233,  236,  274. 

Zettiry,  A.  de,  233,  243,  251,  272,  273, 
487. 

Zollinger,  W.,  183. 

Zuccarini,  E.,  226,  233,  235,  236,  238, 
251,  237,  260,  262,  263,  274. 


GENERAL  INDEX 


Abandoned  lands  in  South  Italy,  57  ff., 
449;  France,  134;  United  States,  366, 
370.  . 

Abruzzi  and  Molise,  emigration  from,  38, 
139,  326,  529;  reactions  of  emigration 
in,  452-454,  457,  461,  462,  471. 

Absentee  landlordism,  70  ff.,  78,  79,  93, 
99,  hi  f.,  117,  451. 

Abuses  of  Terms  of  employment  in 
Brazil,  293  ff.,  296  f.;  United  States, 
^391.  See  also  Defrauding  of  Italians. 

Abyssinian  war,  271,  491,  493. 

Acqua,  dell’,  262. 

Adams,  325. 

Agrarian  contracts  in  South  Italy,  72  ff., 
79  f.,  84  f.,  86  f.;  North  Italy,  1126.; 
Italy  generally,  455,  512.  For  other 
countries,  see  Agriculture,  Italians  in. 

Agricultural  laborers  in  South  Italy,  83, 
85  ff.,  99,  450;  North  Italy,  116  ff.; 
Italy  generally,  39  f.,  454.  For  other 
countries,  see  Agriculture,  Italians  in. 

Agricultural  methods  of  Italians  in 

South  Italy,  61  f.,  64,  77  ff.,  453  L 
North  Italy,  112,  114,  115  f.,  118; 
France,  131  ff.;  Switzerland,  173;  the 
Trentino,  193;  Tunisia,  216  f.;  Argen- 
tina, 265  f.;  Brazil,  291  ff.,  301,  302, 
307,  308,  310;  United  States,  ch.  xix 
passim;  Italy  generally,  430,  452  f., 

512-  . . 

Agriculture,  Italians  in,  in  Italy,  51  ff., 

449  ff.,  531;  France,  129,  130,  131  ff., 
143  f.;  Germany,  153;  Switzerland, 
173,  182  f.;  Austria,  191,  196,  199; 
Albania,  207;  Greece,  207;  Rumania, 
209;  Tunisia,  215,  216  f.;  Algeria, 

221;  Argentina,  230 ff.,  256,  265!.; 
Brazil,  2890.,  299  ff.;  United  States, 
325,  334,  363  ff-,  424,  425,  434-  See 
also  Dairying. 

Albania,  Italians  in,  206. 

Alberdi,  225. 

Alcoholic  drinking  in  South  Italy,  95, 
423;  France,  144,  145,  147;  Germany, 
166,  168;  Switzerland,  187;  Austria- 
Hungary,  201;  Argentina,  269;  United 
States,  361,  362^369,  380,  386,  396, 
406;  significance  of,  423;  increased  in 
Italy,  464. 

Algeria,  Italians  in,  5,  10,  21,  219  ff. 

Algerians  in  France,  149. 


Aloisi,  258. 

Alongi,  72  f. 

Alsace-Lorraine,  emigration  from,  to 
Algeria,  221;  Argentina,  234. 

Amati,  491. 

“ Americani,”  452  ff.  {passim),  503,  515. 

Amiris,  de,  236,  247. 

Andree,  227,  259. 

Annunzio,  d’,  493. 

Anselm,  150. 

Apulia,  emigration  from,  38,  197,  206, 

207,  211,  213,  217,  259,  529;  reactions 
of  emigration  in,  452,  454,  459  f.,  464. 

Arlberg  Tunnel,  192  f. 

Argentina,  Italians  in,  5,  15  ff.,  18  ff., 

30  ff.,  37,  103,  223  ff.,  305,  329,  365, 

37o,  372,  410  f.,  419,  421,  429,  431, 

434,  .444,  466,  487,  489,  498,  507,  516. 

Argentine-Paraguay  war,  277. 

Art,  Italians  in,  in  South  Italy,  97; 
France,  134  f.;  Switzerland,  179;  Tur- 
key, 211;  Argentina,  255,  257  f.,  270, 

271;  Brazil,  315. 

Asia,  Italians  in,  10,  211,  419. 

Assimilation  of  Italians  in  Switzerland, 

180  f.;  Greece,  207;  Turkey,  211; 
Tunisia,  218;  Algeria,  221  f.;  Argen- 
tina, 270  f.,  276;  Brazil,  318  f.;  United 

. States,  394  ff.,  405,  406,  409  f.;  abroad 
generally,  441  ff.,  505,  506'f.,  524. 

Attitude  of  employing  classes  toward 
Italians  in  France,  132,  134,  140,  146; 
Germany,  160  ff.;  Switzerland,  180: 
Brazil,  319;  United  States,  401  f., 
abroad  generally,  424,  507. 

Attitude,  general,  toward  Italians  in 
France,  149;  Germany,  161;  Switzer- 
land, 180  ff.;  Austria-Hungary,  199; 
Egypt,  213;  Tunisia,  218;  Algeria, 

222;  Argentina,  252,  273,  274,  277  f.; 
Brazil,  319;  United  States,  325,  380, 

401,  407  ff.;  abroad  generally,  504  f., 

506,  507  521  f. 

Attitude  of  labor  classes  toward  Italians 
in  France,  140  ff.;  Germany,  163  ff.; 
Switzerland,  182;  Austria-Hungary, 

198  f.;  Great  Britain,  205;  Argen- 
tina, 277;  United  States,  402  ff. ; — 
abroad  generally,  504,  507,  517. 

Austria,  rule  in  North  Italy,  96, 106, 107, 

108, 1 21 ; territories  of,  desired  by  Italy, 

493,  496,  497,  500. 


547 


GENERAL  INDEX 


548 

Austria-Hungary,  Italians  in,  8 f.,  28, 
33,  123,  124,  189  ff.,  207,  420;  emi- 
gration from,  189,  198. 

Austro-Hungarian  peoples  in  Germany, 
157,  160;  Argentina,  235,  254;  United 
States,  331,  347,  350,  356,  358,  362, 
364,  386,  422. 


Bagdad  railway,  21  r. 

Balkan  peoples  in  United  States,  331. 

Balkan  states,  Italians  in,  10.  See  also 
names  of  states. 

Bandini,  368,  373. 

Bankers,  Italian,  in  United  States,  339, 
39i f- 

Barbers,  Italian,  in  Austria,  194;  Malta, 
206;  Tunisia,  215;  Argentina,  262, 
267;  Brazil,  314,  315;  United  States, 
333,  335  f->  337,  339i  number  among 
emigrants,  531. 

Basilicata,  emigration  from,  37, 38, 102  f., 
145,  217,  262,  315,  326,  328  f.,  417, 
529;  return  of  emigrants  to,  41  and 
ch.  xxii  passim;  reactions  of  emigra- 
tion in,  448,  449,  452,  455,  456,  461, 
463,  469,  471,  513.  See  also  Viggiano. 

Basques  in  Argentina,  264. 

Belgians  in  France,  130,  131,  144;  Ar- 
gentina, 235. 

Belgium,  Italians  in,  5,  10,  206. 

Belluno,  emigration  from,  9,  118,  124, 
157,  158,  i93,  307- 

Berenini,  498. 

Bernasconi,  258. 

Bertarelli,  295,  296,  508. 

Bevione,  495. 

Birth  rate  in  Italy,  469  S.,  517.  See  also 
Child  bearing. 

Black  Death,  450. 

Blunt,  81. 

Bodio,  4,  475-478,  509,  5i8,  5i9- 

Bolivia,  Italians  in,  17. 

Bollettino  dell’  Emigrazione,  478. 

Bonaparte,  J.,  96. 

Bonomelli,  170,  476,  484. 

Bootblacks,  Italian,  in  France,  135,  137, 
145;  Argentina,  257,  262;  Brazil,  314; 
United  States,  326,  444  f.,  447,  417. 

Bourbon  rule  in  South  Italy,  54,  65,  70, 
96,  98  f.,  101,  106,  107,  511. 

Brace,  324. 

Brazil,  Italians  in,  15  f.,  18  ff.,  30  ff.,  41, 
103,  122,  279  ff.,  329,  365,  419,  438, 
466,  498,  507. 

Brazilian  civil  war  of  1893-94,  285. 

Brenner  railway,  151. 

Brick  furnaces,  Italian  workers  in, 
in  France,  136;  Germany,  154,  165  f.; 
Hungary,  197  f.;  Algeria,  221;  Ar- 


gentina, 256;  United  States,  345; 
number  among  emigrants,  531. 

Brieg-Disentis  railroad,  176,  183,  184. 

Brigandage,  62,  98,  102. 

Brougnes,  232,  508. 

Bryce,  240,  290. 

Building  workmen,  Italian  emigrants,  40, 
531;  from  North  Italy,  123;  in  France, 
i35»  i39,  146;  Germany,  152,  153, 
i55>  I57_I59>  163,  164,  167;  Switzer- 
land, 177  f.,  183;  Austria,  191-193, 
199;  Hungary,  197;  Serbia,  208;  Rou- 
mania,  209;  Turkey,  21 1;  Egypt, 
212  f.;  Tunisia,  215,  218;  Algeria,  221; 
Argentina,  244,  255-259;  Brazil,  279; 
United  States,  325,  332,  333,  352  f., 
377,  379,  403. 

Bulgaria,  Italians  in,  208  f. 

Cabrini,  498,  505,  520. 

Calabria,  emigration  from,  37,  38,  48, 
103,  529;  to  Switzerland,  175;  Tunisia, 
217;  Argentina,  238,  259,  262,  276; 
Brazil,  315;  United  States,  325,  345, 
351- . 

Calabria,  return  of  emigrants  to,  41, 
ch.  xxii  passim;  reactions  of  emigra- 
tion in,  449-451,  453,  455,  460-463, 
466,  469,  471. 

Campania,  emigration  from,  38,  48,  102, 
529;  to  France,  135,  136,  145;  Ger- 
many, 15 1 ; Tunisia,  214;  Algeria, 
220;  Argentina,  262;  Brazil,  314,  315; 
United  States,  325, 326, 351, 366;  reac- 
tions of  emigration  in,  454,  458,  460, 
462,  467. 

Canada,  Italians  in,  17,  19,  31,  320,  338, 
345,  350,  35i,  359,  400. 

Carli,  495. 

Carnot,  assassinated  by  Italian  an- 
archist, 141. 

Carpi,  5 f.,  23,  37,  39,  102,  231,  467,  474, 
491- . 

Castellini,  496. 

Cavour,  117. 

Central  America,  Italians  in,  17. 

Central  Italy,  emigration  from,  49,  157. 
See  also  under  names  of  compart- 
ments. 

Ceppi,  262. 

Child  bearing  in  South  Italy,  96;  North 
Italy,  124,  126;  of  Italians  in  Argen- 
tina, 235,  275  f.;  Brazil,  319;  United 
States,  407,  410;  generally,  430,  440. 

Child  workers  in  South  Italy  and  Sicily, 
85  f.,  449,  460;  Spain,  102;  France, 
102,  129,  131,  134,  135,  *37,  144  ff-, 
520;  Asia  and  .Africa,  102;  Hungary, 
123,  197  f.,  200;  Germany,  123,  154, 
1 55,  159,  166,  169;  Switzerland,  179, 


GENERAL  INDEX 


549 


180,  184,  186;  Austria,  193,  200,  201; 
Great  Britain,  203  f.;  Argentina,  267; 
United  States, ^24^345,  348,  349,  366, 
378  f.,  391;  abroad  generally,  503. 

Chile,  Italians  in,  17,  21. 

Chinese,  in  United  States,  326,  343,  358; 
emigrants,  421. 

Chioggia,  fishermen  of,  195  f.,  197,  200, 
211. 

Church  lands  secularized,  54  ff.,  65  ff., 
74,  83,  no,  hi. 

Cianfarra,  394. 

Clergy,  Italian,  in  Italy,  6,  499;  South 
Italy,  66,  67,  97;  North  Italy,  121; 
Germany,  170;  Brazil,  279,  31 1; 
United  States,  330,  397  f.;  abroad 
generally,  484  f.  See  also  Religion. 

Climate,  as  a factor  in  causing  emigra- 
tion, 51  ff.,  78,  108,  118;  as  a factor 
in  choice  of  destination,  276  (Argen- 
tina), 289  (Brazil),  371  (United  States). 

Coletti,  F.,  447,  448,  472. 

Commissioner-General  of  Emigration 
(Italian),  19  ff.,  478  ff.,  492,  518  f. 

Common  rights,  55,  88  f. 

Consorzio  per  la  Tutela  [Difesa]  dell’ 
Emigrazione  Temporanea  nell’  Europa 
Continentale,  13,  483. 

Consular  service,  Italian,  145,  184,  481, 
SJ7- 

Cooperative  enterprise  in  Argentina, 
273;  Brazil,  305,  308,  310,  311,  313; 

- United  States,  368,  370;  more  of,  de- 
sirable in  Italy,  512. 

Corradini,  C.,  519. 

Corradini,  E.,  317,  427,  494  f.,  498,  501, 
505- 

Correnti,  5,  491 

Cosattini,  13,  446. 

Credit,  in  Italy,  512.  See  also  Usury. 

Crime,  in  South  Italy,  62,  72  f.,  98,  433, 
439  f-,  464  f-,  51G  North  Italy,  115, 
120,  464!.;  France,  147;  Germany, 
161;  Switzerland,  187;  United  States, 
404  ff.,  408;  abroad  generally,  424, 
439  f-»  443- 

Cnspi,  218,  294,  475,  491,  496. 

Cromer,  213. 

Cuba,  Italians  in,  17. 


Dairying,  Italians  in,  in  France,  131 ; Bra- 
zil, 303,  305,  310;  United  States,  366; 
Italy,  449  f.;  emigrants,  531. 

Danes,  in  Argentina,  238;  United  States, 
321. 

Dante  Alighieri,  Societa,  485,  514. 
Death  rate  in  Italy,  469  ff.,  517. 
Deforestation  in  Italy,  53  ff.,  108,  511. 
De  Frenzi,  495. 


Defrauding  of  Italians,  in  Germany, 
165;  Austria-Hungary,  201;  Greece, 
208;  Argentina,  269;  Brazil,  293, 
294  f . ; United  States,  390  ff.,  406  f.; 
as  dealt  with  in  Italian  law,  477. 

Delmonico,  375. 

De  Martino,  488. 

Dependency,  in  France,  145;  Switzer- 
land, 181,  184;  Brazil,  319;  United 
States,  378;  abroad  generally,  434, 
481,  502.  " 

Depretis,  475. 

De  Zerbi,  475. 

De  Zettiry,  487. 

Dom  Pedro,  284,  285. 

Domestic  service,  Italians  in,  in  France, 
i3°>  137;  Austria,  193,  194;  Argen- 
tina, 256;  United  States,  334,  349; 
emigrants,  532. 

Double  citizenship,  488  ff.,  492,  493,  523. 

Dutch  in  Germany,  157. 

Duval,  4. 

Earthquakes,  63,  271,  318,  392,  398,  455. 
492. 

Ecuador,  Italians  in,  21. 

Education  (including Illiteracy),  in  South 
Italy,  96  f.,  458,  460;  North  Italy,  96, 
121  f.,  123, 193,  201,  460,  483;  France, 
148;  Switzerland,  187;  Austria,  198; 
Argentina,  272;  Brazil,  298,  317; 
United  States,  324,  330,  377,  395  f. 
409  f.;  Italy,  503,  514  f.,  516,  518  ff.; 
abroad  generally,  424  f.,  459  ff.,  484, 
485,  492,  493-. 

Egypt,  Italians  in,  5,  10,  212  f.,  511. 

Einaudi,  263,  477. 

Emigrant,  definition  of,  4. 

Emigrants,  age  of,  39  f.,  41,  43,  472,  530; 
occupations  of,  40,  531  f.  See  also 
names  of  occupations. 

Emigrants  and  immigrants,  sex  of,  38  f., 
41,  43,  i9U  213,  342,  39°,  472,  530, 
531- 

Emigration,  intensity  of,  38,  529;  a 
drain  upon  national  income,  472  f., 
510;  its  place  in  Italian  imperialism, 
493  ff. ; not  a remedy  for  over  popu- 
lation, 508;  not  a principal  means  to 
national  redemption,  509. 

Emigration  Committees  in  Italy,  480. 

Emigration  Council,  479,  518  f. 

Emilia,  seasonal  immigrants  in,  36; 
emigration  from,  38,  351,  529.  See 
also  Romagna. 

Encouragement  of  immigration  by  law, 
in  Argentina,  225  f.,  231;  Brazil,  280, 
281,  284,  285  f.,  290,  302,  306,  312. 

Engineering  enterprises  and  Public 
Works,  Italians  engaged  in,  in  France, 


550 


GENERAL  INDEX 


13°.  I3I>  136,  209;  Germany,  155; 
Switzerland,  174,  176  f. ; Austria,  192, 
194  f.;  Scotland,  204;  Portugal,  206; 
Bulgaria,  208;  Roumania,  209;  Tur- 
key, 211;  Egypt,  212  f.;  Tunisia,  215; 
Algeria,  221;  Argentina,  257,  259!.; 
Brazil,  313,  315;  United  States,  353  ff., 
358,  365,  377.  See  also  Railroads. 

English,  in  Egypt,  212,  5x1;  Argentina, 
226,  229,  264, 424;  Brazil,  282;  United 
States,  321,  331-333,  335,  354;  gen- 
erally, 421. 

English  capital,  influence  of,  in  Argen- 
tina, 504;  introduced  in  South  Italy, 
5J3- 

European  war,  8,  32  S.,  148,  150,  200, 
202,  208,  271,  310,  398  f.,  404,  427, 
431,  447,  448,  466,  483,  485,  500,  508, 
515,520,521,523. 

Exclusion  by  law  from  employment  or 
country,  in  France,  138,  143,  150; 
Germany,  156;  Tunisia,  218;  Algeria, 
220,  221;  Argentina,  277  f.;  Aus- 
tralia, 277;  United  States,  277,  396, 
400,  404,  408  f.,  497,  518  ff. 

Family  relationships  of  Italians,  in 
South  Italy,  95,  433,  439;  Switzerland, 
187;  Tunisia,  217;  Argentina,  275; 
Brazil,  311;  United  States,  380  f., 
395,  406;  generally,  439,  44°  f-,  4^4  L; 
generally,  439,  440  f.,  464  f. 

Federzoni,  495. 

Ferrero,  Signora,  295,  415. 

Ferri,  432,  488  f.,  521. 

Feudalism  in  Italy,  64,  73  f.,  76,  98, 
106,  1 13 ; results  of  abolition  of,  54  ff., 
65  ff.,  88. 

Fishermen,  Italian,  in  France,  136; 
Austria,  192,  195  f.,  197,  200;  Iberian 
Peninsula,  206;  Greece,  207;  Turkey, 
211;  Egypt,  213;  Tunisia,  214,  215; 
Algeria,  220,  222;  United  States,  325, 
333,  340  f.;  Australia,  419. 

Florenzano,  474. 

Food  and  diet,  in  South  Italy,  95;  North 
Italy,  118,  119,  121;  France,  144,  145; 
Germany,  166,  167;  Switzerland,  181, 
185;  Austria-Hungary,  201;  Brazil, 
296,  306,  310;  United  States,  383, 
386,  467;  abroad  generally,  442,  407- 

Forestry,  Italians  in,  in  France,  130, 133; 
Switzerland,  173  f.;  Austria,  191,  196; 
Tunisia,  215,  216;  Algeria,  221;  United 
States,  345;  emigrants,  531. 

Fortunato,  476,  510. 

France,  Italians  in,  5,  8 f.,  21,  28,  33, 
102,  129  ff.,  420,  465,  47°)  520.  See 
also  Lorraine  (French). 

Franchetti,  509. 


Franco-Prussian  war,  6,  156. 

Fratta,  di,  476-478. 

French,  in  Switzerland,  171;  Turkey, 
211;  Egypt,  212;  Tunisia,  214  ff.;  Al- 
geria, 2196.;  Argentina,  226,  229, 
235,  247,  264;  United  States,  331,  335. 

Friuli,  emigration  from,  13  f.,  118,  122  f., 
158,  446. 

Gabellotto,  72  f.,  78,  84,  86. 

Gallenga,  99  f.,  111,  115. 

Gambling,  in  South  Italy,  97,  417;  Ger- 
many, 168;  France,  147,  168;  United 
States,  396,  406. 

Gardeners.  See  Agriculture,  Italians  in. 

Garibaldi,  A.,  279,  304. 

Garibaldi,  G.,  99,  271,  279,  306,  318,  323, 
398,  416,  427,  430,  466. 

Garibaldi,  R.,  496. 

Genoa.  See  Liguria. 

Germany,  Italians  in,  5,  8 f.,  14,  21,  28, 
33>  123, 139,  141, 151  ff.,  346,  420,  459; 
480,  520;  emigration  from,  6,  335,  510. 

Germans  in  Brazil,  16,  280,  281,  287, 
288,  290,  302-305,  307-311;  3!6; 

France,  130;  Switzerland,  171,  172, 
178;  Argentina,  227,  235,  242,  247, 
261,  265,  424;  United  States,  321, 331- 
337;  343;  345;  347-350,  356,  358,  364, 
372,  390,  397;  as  emigrants,  generally, 
421. 

Giacosa,  376. 

Gide,  142. 

Giudice,  475. 

Gladstone,  99. 

Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  Italians  in,  5, 
10,  203  ff. 

Greece,  Italians  in,  21,  207  f. 

Greek  rule  in  South  Italy,  59,  95,  98. 

Greeks  in  Turkey,  211;  Egypt,  212; 
United  States,  335,  339,  345,  361. 

Grossi,  491. 

Guazzone,  251. 

Hammerton,  251. 

Health,  problems  of,  in  Italy,  95,  120, 
121,457,461  ff., 469, 479, 515;  France, 
145,  147,  149;  Germany,  166;  Switz- 
erland, 186;  Austria-Hungary,  201; 
Greece,  208;  Argentina,  277;  Brazil, 
296,  309,  310  f.,  317;  United  States, 
379,  381  ff.,  386  ff.,  396,  401,  406; 
abroad  generally,  439,  466,  479,  522, 
523.  See  also  Malaria;  Industrial 
Accidents. 

Holland,  Italians  in,  10. 

Hospitals,  Italian,  in  Argentina,  227, 
271;  United  States,  389;  abroad  gen- 
erally, 482, 485.  — - 


GENERAL  INDEX 


551 


Hotels  and  restaurants,  Italians  em- 
ployed in  or  managing,  in  Germany, 
153;  Switzerland,  179;  Great  Britain, 
204;  Argentina,  227,  255,  356,  262; 
Brazil,  314;  United  States,  325,  340, 

391-  . ~ 

Housing,  in  Italy,  94  f.,  120,  121, 

457)  5I5>  France,  144  ff.;  Germany, 
166,  167  f.;  Switzerland,  183,  185  {.; 
Austria-Hungary,  201 ; Great  Britain, 
204;  Tunisia,  217;  Argentina,  266, 
268  f.;  Brazil,  296,  310,  317;  United 
, States,  324,-326,.  362^66,  367,  381  ff., 
390;  abroad  generally,  424,  442. 
Huret,  239. 

Idea  Nazionale,  493,  496,  498. 
Imperialism  in  Italy,  486  ff.,  514,  524  f. 
Inchiesta  Agraria,  71,  81,  88,  90,  92,  95, 
99,  hi,  112,  xi6,  120,  452,  509,  4x4. 
Inchiesta  Pariamentare,  72,  452,  454, 
458,  489,  5*0- 

Industrial  accidents  to  Italians,  in 
France,  143,  147;  Germany,  167; 
Switzerland,  185;  United  States,  389  f. 
524;  abroad  generally,  481. 
Inheritance  customs  in  Italy,  68  f.,  no, 
114. 

Intermarriage,  in  France,  143;  Germany, 
1 61;  Switzerland,  181;  Austria-Hun- 
gary, 199;  Argentina,  276,  444;  Bra- 
zil, 305;  Australia,  443;  United  States 
443;  abroad  generally,  443. 

Internal  migration,  see  Seasonal  mi- 
gration. 

International  trade,  448,  467  f.,  477,  493. 
Irish,  in  United  States,  321,  326,  331, 
335,  339,  343,  345,  349,  35°,  353,  354, 
356  f-,  358,  361,  39°,  395,  397,  400, 
402,  403,  405,  407,  422;  as  emigrants 
generally,  421,  434;  in  Australia,  443. 
Iron  and  steel  mills,  Italians  in,  in  France, 
139,  146  ff.;  Germany,  156  f.,  158, 
160;  United  States, _332,  345,  387. 
Irrigation  in  Italy,  78,  108  f.,  511. 
Istituto  Coloniale  Italiano,  492  f.,  498  f. 
Italica  Gens,  484. 

Italo-Turkish  war,  8,  211,  427,  497  ff., 
513- 

Itinerant  types,  in  France,  134,  135; 
Germany,  151,  155, 158, 159,  169, 193; 
Austria,  195;  Great  Britain,  203,  204; 
Belgium,  206;  Iberian  Peninsula,  206; 
Russia,  210;  Argentina,  227,  262; 
Brazil,  279,  283,  284,  314;  United 
, States, .323-325,  33°,  334;  generally, 
102,  418,  419,  434,  532. 

Jacini,  83  f.,  no,  114,  451,  509. 
Japanese  in  Uixited  States,  361. 


Jews  in  United  States,  333,  335,  337-339, 
347,  348,  397,  403.  See  also  Russians 
in  United  States. 

Kaerger,  239. 

Kiel  Canal,  Italians  at,  159. 

Labor  movements,  Italian  role  in,  South 
Italy,  76,  87, 101,  435;  France,  140  ff.; 
Germany,  163  f.,  459;  Switzerland, 
177  f.,  182;  Tunisia,  217  f.;  United 
States,  402  ff.;  abroad  generally,  421, 
426,  435.  See  also  Attitude  of  labor 
classes. 

Labriola,  Antonio,  498. 

Labriola,  Arturo,  498. 

Lair,  141. 

Lambert,  142. 

Land  ownership,  in  Italy,  54  f.,  65  ff., 
77  ff.,  82,  83, 104,  109  ff.,  450 ff.,  511  f. 

Lanfranc,  150. 

Lanza,  474. 

Latifundium,  52,  62,  64!.,  68,  69,  77  f., 
449,  511L 

Latixxm,  seasonal  immigrants  in,  36;  em- 
igration from,  38,  135,  529. 

Laveleye,  de,  420. 

Law  on  emigration,  Italian,  465,  475, 
477  ff.,  490,  509,.  517  f.;  Spanish,  478. 
See  also  Suspension  of  emigration. 

Le  Play,  89. 

Liguria,  emigration  from,  5,  37,  38,  529; 
in  France,  131,  136;  Turkey,  210,  211; 
Tunisia,  214;  Argentina,  227,  253,  267; 
Brazil,  279,  303,  314;  United  States 
324,  .325,  333,  337,  340,  35U  366; 
reactions  of  emigration  in,  467,  503. 

Literacy  test  bill,  comment  in  Italy  on, 
518  ff. 

Loetschberg  railway,  176. 

Lombardy,  emigration  from,  37,  38,  40, 
107,  125,  420,  529;  in  France,  139; 
Germany,  156,  158;  Switzerland,  173; 
Trentino,  193;  England,  203;  Argen- 
tina, 236,  255,  259,  266,  309;  Brazil, 
3°4,  3°9,  3I4;  United  States,  351, 
366;  reactions  of  emigration  in,  452, 
453- 

Longshoremen,  Italian,  in  France,  136; 
Tunisia,  218;  Brazil,  314;  United 
States,  338,  355  ff.,  402,  403. 

Lorraine  (French),  Italians  in,  129, 
138  f.,  431,  513. 

Lottery  in  South  Italy,  91,  97.  See  also 
Gambling. 

Lorenzoni,  446. 

Lucca,  emigration  from,  in  France,  133, 
135;  Germany,  151;  England,  203; 
Scotland,  204;  United  States,  323. 

Luiggi,  259. 


552 


GENERAL  INDEX 


Lunaldi,  474. 

Luxemburg,  Italians  in,  10,  33,  205  f. 

Luzzatti,  477,  479,  518  f.,  520. 

Malaria,  in  South  Italy,  592.,  80,  121, 
461  f.,  511;  North  Italy,  60,  108; 
Brazil,  310. 

Malta,  Italians  in,  206. 

Manufactures,  Italians  in,  in  Italy,  no, 
in,  113,  121,  125  f.,  512  f.;  France, 
130,  136  f.;  Germany,  153,  158,  159; 
Switzerland,  172,  174,  178  f . ; Austria, 
191  f.,  194;  Belgium,  206;  Argentina, 
256,  257,  260  ff.,  268;  Brazil,  303,  304, 
308,  310,  3142.;  United  States,  325, 
332,  344  2.,  372,  377,  378,  384,  402  2., 
423;  abroad  generally,  442. 

Marches,  emigration  from,  38,  197,  340, 
422,  529;  reactions  of  emigration  in, 
452- 

Marriage,  in  Italy,  95,  421,  431,  432, 
469!.;  abroad,  432;  generally,  440. 

Martinengo  Cesaresco,  112. 

Mazzini,  271,  427,  491. 

Meano,  258. 

Medici,  259. 

Menezes  e Souza,  283. 

Mercantile  marine,  Italian,  467,  479. 

Mexicans  in  United  States,  361,  393. 

Mexico,  Italians  in,  5,  17. 

Mihanovich,  254. 

Military  service,  departure  from  Italy 
to  escape,  6,  12;  in  South  Italy,  100; 
deserters  from,  in  Algeria,  219;  ex- 
pected of  Algerian-born  Italians,  222; 
in  Argentina,  227,  274;  reservists  re- 
turned to  Italy  for,  34,  398 f.,  427; 
for  United  States,  refused  by  Italy, 
399;  in  Italy,  430,  475;  losses  of,  to 
Italy,  by  emigration,  465  2.,  517;  re- 
quired of  foreign-born  Italians,  487; 
its  place  in  patriotism,  489;  its  con- 
sequences for  citizenship,  490;  non- 
voters not  exempt  from,  in  Italy,  513. 

Miners  (including  quarrymen),  Italian 
in  Greece,  21,  207;  South  Italy,  86, 
104;  France,  130,  138  2.;  Germany, 
153,  1562.,  166  f. ; Switzerland,  172, 
174, 183;  Austria,  192, 196;  Hungary, 
197;  Luxemburg,  205;  Belgium,  206; 
Russia,  210;  Turkey,  211;  Egypt, 
213;  Tunisia,  215,  218,  468;  United 
States,  323,  325,  332,  333,  337,  338, 
343,  349s-,. 372,  377,  379,  384,  389, 
402,403;  Asia,  419;  among  emigrants, 

S31- 

Minghetti,  475. 

Mont  Cenis  Tunnel,  175. 

Montemartini,  513. 

Montenegro,  Italians  in,  206. 


Morocco,  Italian  aspiration  for  posses- 
sion of,  496. 

Morpurgo,  117  f.,  119,  428. 

Morra,  258. 

Mosso,  52. 

Murat,  65,  96. 

Nationalist  movement  in  Italy,  493  2. 

Naturalization,  in  France,  143;  Ger- 
many, 161;  Switzerland,  180;  Austria- 
Hungary,  191,  199;  Tunisia,  218; 
Algeria,  221  f.;  Argentina,  273,  489; 
Brazil,  288,  318;  United  States,  399  f. 
489  f.,  505,  507;  generally,  4227432, 
487  2.,  492,  5042,  507,  523,  524. 

Neapolitan  emigrants,  see  Campania, 
emigration  from. 

Negri,  491. 

Negroes  in  United  States,  334-336,  340, 
358,  361,  368,  369,  371,  373,  388. 

Negro  slavery  in  Argentina,  223;  Brazil, 
280  2.,  321;  United  States  321. 

Newspapers,  Italian,  in  Germany,  170; 
Argentina,  227,  272;  United  States, 
330  f.,  396,  399,  400,  436,  519. 

Nicotera,  475. 

Nitti,  459,  476,  487,  5IO>  5i3- 

Normans  in  South  Italy,  64,  98. 

North  Italians,  in  France,  146,  432; 
Germany,  151,  155,  159,  168;  Switz- 
erland, 174;  Egypt,  213;  Algeria,  220; 
Argentina,  274;  Brazil,  289,  314,  315, 
317;  United  States,  323-325>  333,  34°, 
34i,  346,  349,  351,  362,  365-370,  372, 
379,  380,  384,  399,  4oo,  404,  409; 
abroad  generally,  422,  434.  See  also 
names  of  compartments. 

Norwegians  in  United  States,  321,  364. 

Olivetti,  59,  498,  500. 

Opera  di  Assistenza  . . . Europa  e Le- 
vante,  484. 

Orano,  498. 

“ Padrone  ” system  in  United  States, 
324,  326,  327,  361,391;  abroad  gen- 
erally, 503.  See  also  Defrauding  of 
Italians;  Abuses  of  terms  of  employ- 
ment. 

Palermo,  emigration  from,  104;  in  Tuni- 
sia, 217;  United  States,  324,  365. 

Panama  Canal,  21,  479. 

Pantano,  477,  478,  487,  517. 

Paraguay,  Italians  in,  18  f.,  30  2. 

Pareto,  472. 

Parish,  226. 

Patriotism  of  Italians  in  Italy,  22,  102; 
Germany,  170;  Turkey,  21 1;  Tuni- 
sia, 218,  221;  Algeria,  221  f.;  Argen- 


GENERAL  INDEX 


553 


tina,  271;  Brazil,  318;  United  States, 

398  f.;  generally,  426  ff.,  487,  505. 
Paulucci  de’  Calboli,  135,  203. 

Pellegrini,  274. 

Pertile,  160,  166. 

Peru,  Italians  in,  17,  21,  423. 
Philanthropies  in  South  Italy,  100. 
Piedmont,  emigration  from,  37,  38,  40, 
107,  125,  529;  to  France,  129,  131, 
133,  135. 136, 139,  513;  Germany,  157; 
Switzerland,  175;  Tunisia,  217;  Argen- 
tina, 227,  235,  236,  247,  266,  267,  274; 
United  States,  351,  366,  367;  reactions 
of  emigration  in,  451,  452,  465,  470. 

Pineroli,  258. 

Podesta,  58. 

Poles  in  Germany,  154,  160,  162;  Ar- 
gentina, 265;  Brazil,  307;  United 
States,  347,  248,  350,  362,  381,  403  f.; 
abroad  generally,  435. 

Political  refugees,  Italian,  in  France, 
150;  Switzerland,  171;  Greece,  207; 
Algeria,  219;  Brazil,  279;  United 
States,  3233  generally,  416. 

Politics  in  Italy,  93,  99,  100,  117,  426  f., 
450,  458,  509  f.,  511,  513  f.,  515  f.; 
Austria-Hungary,  199;  Argentina, 
273  f.;  Brazil,  318;  United  States, 

399  f-5  abroad  generally,  435. 
Population,  net  decline  of,  due  to  emi- 
gration, in  Basilicata,  103,  471;  else- 
where in  Italy,  471. 

Portugal,  Italians  in,  10,  206. 

Portuguese  in  Brazil,  16,  281,  287,  288, 
290,  315;  abroad  generally,  435. 
Portuguese  rule  in  Brazil,  279,  28c. 
Prices  of  farm  products,  decline  of,  in 
Italy,  49  f.,  67,  83,  87  f. 

Prinetti  decree,  see  Suspension  of  emi- 
gration to  Brazil. 

Professions,  Italians  in,  in  France,  130, 
134;  Switzerland,  179;  Tunisia,  215, 
221;  Argentina,  255,  257;  Brazil,  315; 
United  States,  329  f. 

Public  finance  in  Italy,  92  f.,  436,  448. 

Qualities  of  Italian  immigrants,  in 
France,  132,  134,  139,  141  f.;  Ger- 
many, 16 1,  163;  Switzerland,  180; 
Tunisia,  217  f.;  Egypt,  213;  Argen- 
tina, 265  fi.;  Brazil,  301,  304,  305, 
308,  310,  317,  319;  United  States, 

■ 325,  336.  340,  345;  348,  349;  35°~352, 
356  f.,  360  ff.,  366  ff.,  380  f.,  383,  390, 
401  ff.,  406  f.,  409;  generally,  415  ff., 
453  ff-,  5°4  f- 

Radical  social  doctrines,  adherence  to,  in 
Germany,  170;  Switzerland,  187; 


Argentina,  273  f.;  Brazil,  318;  United 
States,  399,  404;  abroad  generally, 
427,  443- 

Railway  labor,  Italian,  in  France,  139; 
Germany,  152,  157,  160;  Switzerland, 
151,  171,  174  ff-;  Austria,  194,  196; 
Hungary,  197;  Greece,  207;  Serbia, 
208;  Bulgaria,  208;  Russia,  210; 
Turkey,  211;  Tunisia,  214,  215; 

Algeria,  220  f.;  Argentina,  260;  Bra- 
zil, 313;  United  States,  326,  343, 
357  ff-,  365,  377- 
Rava,  485. 

Recreations,  in  Italy,  97,  147,  187,  397, 
436;  Argentina,  269;  Brazil,  295; 
United  States,  396  f.,  427;  abroad 
generally,  436. 

Regionalism  of  Italians,  in  Germany, 
170;  Switzerland,  187;  Argentina, 
272  f.;  Brazil,  317;  United  States, 
325,  392,  39Ai^_4°3;  generally,  431  f., 
5?5!  "Ttaly,  511. 

Religion,  in  Italy,  97,  121,  436,  440,  460, 
476,  508;  France,  147;  Germany,  170; 
Turkey,  211;  Brazil,  305,  311,  438; 
United  States,  324,  393,  394,  397  f., 
443;  abroad,  442  f.  See  also  Clergy, 
Superstition. 

Returned  emigrants,  436,  ch.  xxii  passim. 
Reynaudi,  478. 

Riis,  383. 

Rid  and  Achaval,  239,  266. 
Risorgimento,  99. 

Rivadavia,  225,  231. 

Rivista  Coloniale,  492,  499,  500,  519. 
Rockefeller  Foundation,  296. 

Romagna,  emigration  from,  139,  175. 
Rosas,  224,  225. 

Ross,  390. 

Rossi,  A.,  251,  275,  295,  325  f.,  458. 
Rossi,  E.  P.,  96. 

Rossi,  L.,  478. 

Roumania,  Italians  in,  33,  209. 

Rudini,  di,  52,  78,  81,  491,  496. 

Russia,  Italians  in,  10,  210. 

Russians,  in  Germany,  154,  160,  162; 
Argentina,  235,  265;  United  States 
(see  also  Jews),  327,  329. 


St.  Gothard  Tunnel,  171,  175,  176,  179, 
i93- 

Salaverria,  267. 

Salisbury,  496. 

Salvioli,  72. 

San  Giuliano,  di,  497,  304. 

Saracens  in  South  Italy,  53,  64,  95. 
Sardinia,  emigration  from,  38,  139,  529. 
Savings,  in  South  Italy,  85, 104;  France, 
133,  143  ff.;  Germany,  166;  Switzer- 


554 


GENERAL  INDEX 


land,  184  f.;  Austria-Hungary,  199  f., 
455 ; Great  Britain,  205;  Greece,  208; 
Tunisia,  217;  Algeria,  221;  Argen- 
tina, 227,  241,  243,  244,  247,  248  ff.; 
263,  268  f.;  Brazil,  291  ff.,  294,  297  f., 
302  f.,  304,  310,  314,  316;  United 
States,  366  ff.,  374  ff.,  377,  379  f.,  381, 
39°,  407 ; generally,  42  2 ff. , 434,  445  ff . 
503;  disposition  of,  in  Italy,  109,  374, 
417  f.,  436  f.,  448,  451  f.,  512. 

Sbarboro,  369,  375. 

Scalabrini,  484. 

Scandinavia,  Italians  in,  10. 

Scandinavians  in  United  States,  331, 
333,  335,  372,  390. 

Scbirmacher,  144. 

Scialoja,  488. 

Seamen,  Italian,  in  Greece,  207;  Argen- 
tina, 227,  253  f.;  Brazil,  279;  United 
States,  233,  338. 

Seasonal  migration  between  Switzer- 
land and  France,  21;  within  Italy, 
36  f.,  60,  S3 2 f . ; between  Italy  and 
Argentina,  37,  243  f.,  268,  419;  be- 
tween Italy  and  France,  129,  146; 
between  Italy  and  Switzerland,  172, 
173;  within  Argentina,  244;  between 
Argentina  and  Brazil,  3 1 2 , 5 23 ; within 
Brazil,  312;  between  Italy  and  United 
States,  37,  342;  within  United  States, 
351,  364  f.,  377;  international,  522. 

Serbia,  Italians  in,  208. 

Sexual  immorality  (including  prostitu- 
tion) in  Italy,  95,  97,  464!.;  France, 
144, 145, 146  ff.;  Germany,  168, 169  f.; 
Switzerland,  187;  Austria-Hungary, 
201;  Egypt,  213;  Argentina,  269; 
United  States,  390;  abroad  generally, 
439-  44U  462.  _ 

Ship  physicians,  activities  of,  438,  461, 
480. 

Shoemakers,  Italian,  in  France,  137; 
Switzerland,  178;  Tunisia,  215;  Al- 
geria, 221;  Argentina,  256,  257,  262, 
267;  Brazil,  3x4,  315;  United  States, 

. 333,  336  f. 

Sicily,  emigration  from,  37,  38,  48,  103 
ff.,  529;  in  Switzerland,  175;  Malta, 
206;  Egypt,  212;  Tunisia,  214,  217; 
Algeria,  220;  United  States,  105,  325, 
337,  34°,  34U  345,  35i,  356,  362,  367, 
368,  381,  393;  Australia,  419;  return 
of  emigrants  to,  41  and  ch.  xxii 
passim;  savings  remitted  to,  447;  re- 
actions of  emigration  in,  448,  449, 
451, 453, 454  f-,  461, 462,  464, 466.  See 
also  Palermo. 

Sighele,  493,  495,  499,  5°°- 

Simplon  Tunnel,  22,  175,  176,  179,  183, 
184,  186. 


Skilled  workmen  in  Austria-Hungary, 
198;  United  States,  342,  352,  353, 
379-  See  also  names  of  occupations. 

Slavs  in  United  States,  345,  358,  362, 
386,  402. 

Societa  Umanitaria,  482  f. 

Societies  for  protection  of  emigrants  and 
immigrants  in  North  Italy,  123; 
France,  145,  484;  Germany,  170,  484; 
Switzerland,  181,  184,  484;  Argen- 
tina, 272;  United  States,  406,  410; 
Austria,  484;  abroad  generally,  433, 
482  ff. 

Societies  of  Italian  immigrants,  in 
France,  149;  Germany,  170;  Switzer- 
land, 187;  Argentina,  272  f.;  Brazil, 
301,  317;  United  States,  393;  abroad 
generally,  427  f.,  433,  435,  436. 

Societies  for  the  introduction  of  immi- 
grants in  Argentina,  225;  Brazil,  285, 
286,  304. 

Sonnino,  66,  86,  509. 

South  Italians  in  France,  135,  136;  Ger- 
many, 155,  157,  158,  161;  Switzer- 
land, 176;  Austria-Hungary,  197; 
Egypt,  212;  Tripoli,  213;  Argentina, 
267;  Brazil,  289,313-315,317;  United 
States,  324-328,  332-334,  336,  340, 
345,  346,  348,  349,  351,  353,  354,  356, 
357  2-,  365-367,  370,  372,  378,  379, 
380,384, 392, 395, 400, 404, 409;  abroad 
generally,  422,  434,  440;  savings  re- 
mitted by,  447.  See  also  names  of 
compartments. 

Spain,  Italians  in,  10,  102,  206. 

Spaniards  in  France,  130,  131,  133; 
Algeria,  219  ff.;  Argentina,  223,  225, 
227,  229,  230,  235,  240,  264,  267,  273; 
Brazil,  288,290;  abroad  generally,  435. 

Spanish  rule,  in  South  Italy,  71,  98; 
Argentina,  223  f.,  279. 

Stampa  (Turin),  496,  497, 

Steamship  agents,  417,  475,  479,  480, 

„ 517. 

Stringher,  447. 

Subsidization  by  Italian  government  of 
schools  in  Argentina,  272;  Brazil,  317; 
congestion  exhibit  in  New  York,  384; 
merchant  marine,  467;  exhibitions  in 
Italy  and  abroad,  482 ; Italian  hospitals 
abroad,  482;  schools  abroad,  482;  pro- 
tective societies  abroad,  482  ff. 

Suez  Canal,  212,  213. 

Sulphur  industry,  Sicilian,  86,  104. 

Superstition,  in  South  Italy,  77,  97; 
North  Italy,  12 1;  Argentina,  265; 

^-United  States,  440;.  abroad  generally, 
440- 

Suspension  of  emigration  by  law  to 
Argentina,  276,  478;  Brazil,  285,  286, 


GENERAL  INDEX 


293,  294,  518;  United  States,  378,  478; 
Uruguay,  478;  by  Italy  generally,  503. 

Swedes  in  United  States,  16,  321. 

Swiss  in  France,  130;  Argentina,  235, 
247,  265;  Brazil,  280,  290;  United 
States,  364. 

Switzerland,  Italians  in,  5,  8 f.,  13,  21, 
28,  33,  171  S-,  500;  emigration  from, 
171,  173,  510,  513.  See  also  Ticino. 

Synge,  430. 

Syrians,  in  Brazil,  314;  United  States. 
339- 

Taft,  519. 

Tamburini,  258. 

Taruffi,  57. 

Taxation  in  Italy,  65,  74  ff.,  89  0.,  120  f., 
479,  5I3,  5!6. 

Temporary  emigration,  23  0.,  103,  105, 
122  0.,  1290.,  1510.,  1720.,  1890., 
203  0.,  243  f.,  344, 351, 377, 378,  428  f., 
.442,  446,  468  f.,  487,  S°7,  522. 

Ticino,  Italians  in,  14,  500,  504. 

Tittoni,  474,  477  f.,  481,  482,  490,  497, 
S°4,  5i9- 

Tocci,_474. 

Tolstoi,  425. 

Tomezzoli,  249  f. 

Tornielli,  148. 

Trade  in  Italy,  no,  450,  456,  512  f.,  515. 

Traders,  Italian,  in  France,  130, 136, 137; 
Germany,  153,  158,  169;  Switzerland, 
179;  Austria,  195;  Great  Britain,  203, 
204;  Belgium,  206;  Bulgaria,  209; 
Russia,  210;  Turkey,  210 f.;  Egypt, 
213;  Tunisia,  214;  Argentina,  227, 
253,  255-257,  262  f.,  267;  Brazil,  304, 
307,  310,  3140.;  United  States,  323- 
325,  334,  337  375  f-i  abroad  gen- 

erally, 442. 

Transportation  (including  highways),  in 
Italy,  92  f.,  431,  511. 

Transportation,  Italians  in,  in  France, 
130,  139;  Switzerland,  179.  See  also 
Railroad  labor. 

Trentine  emigrant?,  193,  195;  in  Brazil, 

3°4,  3°S>  3°7- 

Tribuna,  (Rome),  497. 

Tripoli,  Italians  in,  10,  214,  4960.,  525; 
acquisition  of,  by  Italy,  491,  496  0. 

Tunisia,  Italians  in,  5,  10,  2140.,  341, 
468,  496,  498,  507,  525;  Italian  aspira- 
tions for  possession  of,  491,  496. 

Turati,  498. 

Turkey,  Italians  in,  210  f.,  500;  emi- 
grants from,  in  Switzerland,  176;  Aus- 
tria-Hungary, 197. 

Turner,  256. 

Tuscany,  emigration  from,  36,  38,  529; 
in  France,  131,  133,  135,  136,  139; 


555 

Switzerland,  174,  178;  England,  203; 
United  States,  340,  351,  352;  reaction 
of  emigration  in,  449.  See  also  Lucca. 

Udine,  emigration  from,  9,  37,  123,  124, 
154,  192,  }97,  3°7,  473- 

Umbria,  emigration  from,  38,  131,  529. 

Unemployment  in  Italy,  33,  85,  87,  95, 
119,455;  France,  144,  149;  Germany, 
165,  167,  169,  183,  200;  Switzerland, 
183  f. ; Austria-Hungary,  200;  Greece, 
207;  Bulgaria,  208;  Rumania,  209; 
Egypt,  213;  Argentina,  268;  United 
States,  351,  376,  377  f-,  381,  39H 

United  StatesTTtaTIans  m,  5,  15  L,  18  0., 
30  0.,  35  f.,  102,  ro3,  105,  186,  279, 
320  0.,  423,  424,  436,  444,  466,  48T, 
516. 

Unskilled  laborers,  Italian,  40,  41,  139, 
i53,  157  ff-,  183,  192,  194,  198,  199, 
207,  214,  244,  245,  267, 315,  325,  342  0. 
353,  357  2.,  365,  379,  386,  506  f.  See 
also  names  of  branches  of  employ- 
ment. 

Urban  colonies  in  France,  1340.;  Ger- 
many, 153;  Switzerland,  181;  Rus- 
sia, 210;  Turkey,  210;  Egypt,  2x3; 
Tunisia,  215;  Algeria,  220;  Argen- 
tina, 253,  267,  268  f.;  Brazil,  289, 
314  0.;  United  States,  328  f.,  330,  370, 
375,381  0-;  generally,  418  f. 

Uruguay,  Italians  in,  5, 17, 18  f.,  21, 30  0. 

Usury  in  Italy,  72,  88,  452,  457. 

Venetia,  emigration  from,  37,  38,  40, 103, 
107,  122  0.,  529;  in  France,  139;  Ger- 
many, 151,  154,  156,  157,  158;  Switz- 
erland, 175;  Austria-Hungary,  192, 
196,  197;  Serbia,  208;  Turkey,  210; 
Tunisia,  214;  Argentina,  237,  240, 
265,  266;  Brazil,  291,  302-304,  307- 
309, 314;  United  States,  352;  reactions 
of  emigration  in,  448,  451,  452,  455, 
456,  460,  463,  466,  473.  See  also 
Belluno,  Chioggia,  Friuli,  Udine. 

Vergueiro,  280  f.,  283. 

Viggiano,  emigration  from,  102,  324. 

Vignes,  141,  147. 

Villari,  L.,  387,  392,  496. 

Villari,  P.,  22,  99  f.,  420,  465,  485,  509, 

510,  5I4>  517- 

Vinci,  147. 

Viviani,  222. 

Wagner,  416. 

Wallas,  507,  508. 

Welsh  in  United  States,  321,  350. 

Wilson,  396,  409,  520. 

Wine  growing,  Italians  in,  in  France,  13 1 
0.;  Hungary,  189;  Russia,  210;  Algeria, 


GENERAL  INDEX 


556 


221;  Argentina,  240,  246;  Brazil,  302, 
304,  305,  307,  308;  United  States,  369. 
Woman  workers  in  South  Italy,  85,  449, 
469;  the  Trentino,  124,  193,  200; 
North  Italy,  125;  France,  129,  130, 
143  fi.;  Germany,  153-155,  159,  166, 
168  f.;  Switzerland,  179,  182,  184; 
Great  Britain,  204;  Egypt,  213; 


Tunisia,  217;  Argentina,  267;  United 
States,  324,  338,  345  ff.,  349,  366,  379, 
380  {.,  387,  440;  Italy,  463. 

Ybicaba,  281,  282,  284. 

Young,  1 12. 

Zanardelli,  58,  510. 


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